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Julius Edmund Goodwyn was born in Middlesex on the 21st February 1824 the son of Thomas Wildman Goodwyn and Elizabeth (nee Flower) but ended his life in Budleigh Salterton.  Elizabeth Flower was the daughter of Sir Charles Flower Alderman of London and Thomas was a partner in Goodwyn & Company who were brewers.  At the time of the 1841 census Julius Goodwyn, aged 17, was living with his mother and sister Elizabeth in Bentick Terrace, Marylebone, his father had died in 1830.  In January 1844 Julius joined the 41st (Welsh) Regiment as an Ensign, he was promoted to Lieutenant in June 1845, and to Captain in May 1850 (1).  In February 1853 the regiment arrived in Malta from Corfu and was with the British Army Garrison in April (2). 

The regiment moved to the Crimea at the outbreak of that war and he was promoted Major in September 1854.  He was heavily involved in the fighting being present at the Battle of Alma on 20th September, when the 41st were in support of an attack on Telegraph Hill, and in repulsing a sortie by the enemy on the 26th October.  At the Battle of Inkerman on the 5th November the 41st Regiment had a torrid time losing eleven officers and 156 men as they tried to defend the Sandbag Battery against overwhelming numbers of Russian troops.  The New York Times reported that “the 41st in particular were exposed to terrible fire … the regiments did not take their colours into battle but the officers were picked off wherever they went and did not require the colour-staff to indicate their presence.”

Having survived Inkerman the regiment was involved in the Siege of Sebastopol where ground was won and then lost at regular intervals.  Goodwyn was involved with his regiment in an attack on an important hill called the Redan on the 18th June 1855.  He was wounded in this assault.  Again, there was heavy loss of life due, apparently, to some serious mistakes by the French commander in chief of the operation, General Pélissier (3).  The siege finally ended in September. Goodwyn was mentioned in dispatches (4) and in December was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.  He received the Crimea medal and clasps and became Knight of the Legion of Honour.  In 1857 he was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath.

The 41st Regiment returned to Malta and was then transferred to the Ionian Islands.  From there they were posted to Jamaica.  While in Jamaica he met and married his wife Euphemia.  Their first son, Julius Henry Goodwyn, was born in Jamaica in October 1859 (5).  Just before the regiment was embarking for England there was an unfortunate incident when Colonel Reynold, who was Deputy-Assistant Adjutant-General on the Jamaica staff, put Colonel Julius Goodwyn C.B. under arrest (6).  The reason for this is not clear but Goodwyn seems to have been exonerated on his return home. 

By 1861 the family were in barracks at the South Camp, Aldershot.  It is likely that Colonel Goodwyn was stationed in England for a few years because he had a second son, Norton James Goodwyn (5), born at Freshwater, Isle of Wight on the 7th October 1861, and a daughter, Eliza Madlon Goodwyn, born in Newcastle in the autumn of 1862.  He was then posted to Ireland and stationed at the army training camp at The Curragh where his next son, Alfred, was born in 1864.  Goodwyn was next posted to India as Brigadier General in the Bengal Army, 1866-1870, stationed near Bernares and at Sealkote.  By 1871 the family were back living, this time, in Ilfracombe, where a final son Walter Meredith Goodwyn was born in 1872 (5).  In 1878 he first appears in Budleigh Salterton living at Cross Park (Morris’ Directory).

By 1880 Goodwyn was a Lieutenant General and Colonel of the 28th (North Gloucester) Foot and he was promoted to General on the 10th January 1881(6).  By that spring he is described in the census as being on half-pay living at Stoneborough House in Budleigh Salterton with his wife Euphemia and children Madlon and Walter.  His wife Euphemia Alexandrina Victoria died on the 7th October 1884 at Stoneborough House at the age of 48 and is buried in East Budleigh (7).

General Goodwyn was active in local events.  He was Honorary Treasurer of the Budleigh Salterton Archery, Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club (as it was then known) and took over as President of the Club from the Honourable Mark Rolle in 1885.  At that time the committee consisted of eight men and nine women, a remarkable proportion of ladies for that time (8). Mr E.W. Ravenscroft CSI took over the presidency a year later.

It was decided that the town needed its own hospital and that it would act as a memorial of Queen Victoria’s Jubilee; money was raised for its construction and the Budleigh Salterton Jubilee Committee organised a meeting of the contributors to the Cottage Hospital Scheme chaired by Dr Brushfield in the Public Rooms on the 26th May 1887.  The principal business was to elect a committee to carry out the scheme. General Goodwyn was one of thirteen elected and he chaired the committee for its first year and was present at the laying of the hospital foundation stone on the 8th March 1888 (9). 

Goodwyn was also apparently an author but the details are somewhat obscure and I haven’t been able to see copies of these works.  In “A Dictionary of the Anonymous and Pseudonymous Literature of Great Britain” by Samuel Halkett & John Laing (Vol 4 Elibron Classics) it says that he wrote under the pseudonym GERSHOM.  Similarly he wrote an article entitled “Unfounded Attacks on British Officers” under his own name in which he apparently expanded at length on how he had trained his battalion in Ireland (10).  

He died at Bath on the 4th March 1890 at the age of 66 and is buried in East Budleigh Churchyard (7).

Compiled and researched by Roger Lendon © 2009.

(1)Hart’s Army List 1856

(2)website.lineone.net/~peterbidmead/regiments2.htm

(3)www.BritishBattles.com

(4)Access to Archives  6807/377-4-Bundle 3  8 Nov 1885 

(5)OVApedia entry “Julius, Norton and Walter Goodwyn”

(6)London Gazette, February 1st, 1881

(7)East Budleigh Memorials

(8)Information from Roger Bowen from the Club Minutes

(9)Budleigh Salterton Hospital Minutes

(10)www.informaworld.com/index/791628438.pdf 2000 by NRH Evans 

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