Mr Edward Wilding was born at 3 Gladstone Road in Garston, Lancashire, England in late 1875 and was later baptised in St Michael’s Church on 9 January 1876. He was the son of Henry Wilding and the former Margaret Noblet. His father, a merchant clerk at the time of his birth, later worked as the manager of a steamship office and was a Justice of the Peace. 

Wilding and his family had moved from Lancashire to Portsmouth by 1901; a naval architect, Wilding later came into the employment of Harland & Wolff and moved to Belfast.

By 1910 Wilding was a resident of Knock in east Belfast but was married in Clifton, Bristol on 5 July 1910 to Marion Emily Shilton (b. 1882 in Burton, Staffordshire). The couple returned to Ireland and by the time of the 1911 census were residents of Jordanstown in Co Antrim, then a small village on the outskirts of north Belfast, located on the western shore of Belfast Lough.

Following the loss of the Titanic, Wilding was called to provide testimony to the British Inquiry regarding the ship’s seaworthiness. 

Wilding remained active in shipbuilding circles for years to come but his final whereabouts remain unclear.