Captain Smith

Born in Well Street, Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent, the son of Edward and Catherine Smith, he attended Etruria British School. After leaving Etruria School at the age of 12, he spent 9 years working in a factory in Etruria, called the Etruria Forge. In 1871, he began to become interested in seamanship and gained a masters certificate at the age of 24, allowing him to take to the ocean.

His first command was that of The Lucy Fennel, and he joined the White Star Shipping Line in March 1880. He served aboard the company's major vessel-freight liners to Australia and liners to New York, where he quickly rose in stature. As the ships grew in size, so did the importance of Captain Smith's presence. He worked his way up through Adriatic, Celtic, Coptic and Germanic, among others. He was Majestic's captain for nine years commencing in 1895, during which he was awarded the Transport Medal. In addition, he was an honourary commander of the Royal Naval Reserve. Smith was regarded as a 'safe captain' and, for the period, he probably was. He was given command of troopships during the Boer War at the start of the 20th century. In 1904 he was made commodore of the White Star fleet, and was awarded the Royal Distinction in 1910.

However, even he encountered problems during his career. While in command of the Germanic on 16 February 1899, it capsized at its New York pier from ice accumulations in its rigging and superstructure. In June 1911, while maneuvering the Olympic alongside a New York pier, a tugboat was damaged from the thrust of one of the liner's propellers. In September that same year Smith was master of the Olympic when it was damaged in a collision with HMS Hawke.
In 1912 Smith had decided he would retire after commanding the RMS Titanic on its maiden voyage. At 11:40 P.M. on April 14 the Titanic struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. The ship sank two hours and forty minutes later killing an estimated 1,500 people.

Smith refused to be rescued and went down with the ship. His body was never recovered.
There is a statue of Captain Smith in Beacon Park, Lichfield.

"When anyone asks me how I can best describe my experience in nearly forty years at sea, I merely say, uneventful. Of course there have been winter gales, and storms and fog and the like. But in all my experience, I have never been in any accident ... or any sort worth speaking about. I have seen but one vessel in distress in all my years at sea. I never saw a wreck and never have been wrecked nor was I ever in any predicament that threatened to end in disaster of any sort."

"I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that . . ."

Captain Edward J. Smith, 1907

Captain E J Smith
Aboard Adriatic in New York, 1907