He and his wife Catherine Barmby (1816/17–1853)[2] were influential supporters of Robert Owen in the late 1830s and early 1840s before moving into the radical Unitarian stream of Christianity in the 1840s.

He founded a utopian community on the Channel Islands and at times corresponded with radicals including William James Linton and Friedrich Engels.

Barmby also authored the first attested writing (1841) of communist in English;[3] having translated it from communiste in French while claiming he first spoke the word in 1840 in Paris, France,[4] the same year he went there to meet the advocates of le communisme as had been written in at least a French article and pamphlet by then, the former by Étienne Cabet and latter by both Théodore Dézamy and Jean-Jacques Pillot.

[5] By his claim, he first discussed "communism" with some followers of François-Noël Babeuf, describing them as "some of the most advanced minds of the French metropolis".

Researchers at Rutgers University explain:Seeking a richer spiritual life than Owenite socialism or Chartism offered, soon after their marriage Catherine and Goodwyn Barmby founded the Communist Church.