Captain Edward J Smith
Born on January 27 1850 in Hanley, Staffordshire, Captain Edward J Smith played a role in one of the most famous disasters at sea in history, the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
The son of a potter and later a grocer, he attended a school in Etruria, which was supported by the Wedgwood pottery works. He stopped attending school around the age of 12 and beginning his life on the sea as a teenager, signed on to the crew of the Senator Weber in 1867.
He rose up the ranks over the years and became a master in 1875. The first vessel he commanded was the Lizzie Fennell which transported goods to and from South America. He made the leap to passenger vessels in 1880 when he went to work for the White Star Line. By 1885 he was the first officer of the ship RMS Republic. Two years later he married Eleanor Pennington and they had their only child, Helen, in 1902.
Eight years later, Smith took his first command of a passenger ship, RMS Baltic, and went on to serve as the captain of several other vessels in the White Star Line from 1895 to 1904. He also served in the British Royal Navy during the Boer War in South Africa.
In 1902 the White Star Line was bought by the International Mercantile Marine Company in a deal financed by famed banker J P Morgan. A new Baltic was added to the White Star Line fleet in 1904 with Smith as its captain. At 23,000 tons the Baltic was one of the largest vessels at the time. His next ship, RMS Adriatic, was even larger. By this time, Smith was held in high esteem by his company and was well known and well regarded among travellers on the North Atlantic route between the United States and Europe.
The White Star Line announced it was building two new ocean liners in 1907 to compete with the Lusitania and Mauretania owned by Cunard. The first of the two vessels, the Olympic, was launched in 1910 with Smith in command. His ship was damaged in 1911 when a British Royal Navy cruiser crashed into its side.
In 1912, Smith became Captain of the Titanic. He was in Belfast on April 2, 1912 for the vessel’s first sea trials. Two days later the ship docked in Southampton and was prepared for its maiden voyage across the North Atlantic. It was heralded as one of the biggest and most luxurious ships of the time.
Image to the right courtesy of Wikipedia. Captain Smith statue, Beacon Park, Lichfield. Photo: © Bs0u10e01. Used under
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
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