Captain Smith's Personal effects

[William Oakes]

I looked and I have not seen this posted before.
If it has, then, my apologies.
i wonder why we see so few personal items that belonged to Captain Smith?
Was his family extremely private?
After a career of 40 years at sea, his family must've had quite a collection from his career.
Is there a museum that has many of Captain Smith's personal belongings on display?
I have been unable to locate one.
In fact, I have never seen any.
Thanks in advance!

 

[Dave Gittins]

Captain Smith's dress sword is in Sea City Museum in Southampton. I have a copy of his Extra Master certificate, so that's around somewhere. Anybody else found anything?

 

[William Oakes]

Thank You!

 

[William Oakes]

Anyone else?

 

[Dan Parkes]

William - you might want to check this in-depth biography on Smith here: Titanic's Officers - RMS Titanic - Captain E.J. Smith

In it, you will find a lot of information, as well as artefacts including
-his loving cup' inscribed “Captain E.J. Smith, 1875"
-Victorian locket belonging to his wife Eleanor, who wore this locket with her husband's photograph in it until her death in 1931
-letters he wrote
-his Board of Trade certificates
-newspaper articles
-film footage
- a large collection of photographs of Smith and family

It is constantly being updated and I have more documents to add in a future update, hopefully soon.

 

[William Oakes]

Thank You, my good man!

 

[Aly Jones]

There are plenty of books on Smith, but I do not own any books on Smith. Smiths direct blooline finished with his daughter, maybe that is the reason why? I know there is a family member of Smith on fb that came from either smiths half brother or sister. They even have the famous original face portrait of smith hanging up on their lounge room wall.

 

[Clockworkpiggy]

William - you might want to check this in-depth biography on Smith here: Titanic's Officers - RMS Titanic - Captain E.J. Smith

In it, you will find a lot of information, as well as artefacts including
-his loving cup' inscribed “Captain E.J. Smith, 1875"
-Victorian locket belonging to his wife Eleanor, who wore this locket with her husband's photograph in it until her death in 1931
-letters he wrote
-his Board of Trade certificates
-newspaper articles
-film footage
- a large collection of photographs of Smith and family

It is constantly being updated and I have more documents to add in a future update, hopefully soon.

Good stuff. Yes, his widow was struck and killed by a car in 1931, as I recall.

 

[Titanic idiot]

Anyone else?

Many years ago when my kids were small, I was at Jefferson school to pick up my kids. A classmate of daughter Amber was also there with his Dad. Jeff Kerley showed me E. J. Smith's s service record book he had brought for son Max to show. It was awesome to have held an item belonging once to Captain Smith. They are distantly related.

 

[Aly Jones]

Ive meet somebody that is a titanic nut like us. He owns titanic captain ej smiths teapot which his wife brought him, which He owned pre titanic and I got to hold smiths teapot. He has papers to go with it. He also owns Thomas Whitley clock that his finance brought him. He also owns other important titanic objects.

 

[Keith H]

I am quite tantalised as to what personal effects there are in the remains of his cabin as when you look at the ships plans you see where a desk and wardrobe once were , his medals are not accounted for so they may be lying in the silt and wreckage of what was his quarters.

 

[Dan Parkes]

Hello Keith. Yes, I think you are right - there must be some very interesting items in the cabins, although I believe they are only able to retrieve items from the debris field, not from within the wreck itself.

By the way, after my comment above pointing the original poster to my website, which has a large collection of material on Smith and the other officers, I sadly discovered he was subsequently selling at least one item from my website on eBay! When I contacted him about this he was very rude, telling me to mind my own business. I don't mind people using the website, that is the reason it is there, but selling items from it is clearly unethical, so I post this as a courtesy to others to beware. It may well put his requests such as found in this thread in perspective.

 

[Steven Christian]

Hello Keith. Yes, I think you are right - there must be some very interesting items in the cabins, although I believe they are only able to retrieve items from the debris field, not from within the wreck itself.

By the way, after my comment above pointing the original poster to my website, which has a large collection of material on Smith and the other officers, I sadly discovered he was subsequently selling at least one item from my website on eBay! When I contacted him about this he was very rude, telling me to mind my own business. I don't mind people using the website, that is the reason it is there, but selling items from it is clearly unethical, so I post this as a courtesy to others to beware. It may well put his requests such as found in this thread in perspective.

Was he trying to sell an item from your site or did he already purchase it from you? I ask because today there are a lot of re-sellers. They don't have the items themselves. They just find them and basically order them for you thru their site and mark up the price. More and more common and some really mark up the price. Common with auto parts and such and not just E-bay. If you hunt around you can usually find the original seller and price. Cheers.

 

[William Oakes]

Hello Keith. Yes, I think you are right - there must be some very interesting items in the cabins, although I believe they are only able to retrieve items from the debris field, not from within the wreck itself.

By the way, after my comment above pointing the original poster to my website, which has a large collection of material on Smith and the other officers, I sadly discovered he was subsequently selling at least one item from my website on eBay! When I contacted him about this he was very rude, telling me to mind my own business. I don't mind people using the website, that is the reason it is there, but selling items from it is clearly unethical, so I post this as a courtesy to others to beware. It may well put his requests such as found in this thread in perspective.

Hey Dan, I took the item (Wilde's certificate) down.
I was no more rude than you were.
And I didn't get it from your site.
I found it on the open web and being that it is over 100 years old there is no copywright on it anyway and it is public property.
But out of respect for you I took it down.
So lets move past this.
It was months ago.
Peace out.

 

[Dan Parkes]

Was he trying to sell an item from your site or did he already purchase it from you?

I do not sell anything from the website, it is all freely available, as I believe history, especially surrounding a tragedy, should be. He was simply selling it himself, without acknowledgement or permission etc.