Mr Charles William Bairnson was born in Tranmere, Cheshire, England on 3 May 1869. He was the son of a Scottish father, William Bairnson, and Henrietta Hughes of Liverpool; he had five known siblings, including several half-siblings from his father’s first marriage. 

Bairnson worked as a pawnbroker’s assistant before going to sea sometime after 1891; he was married in Liverpool on 15 May 1893 to Mary Ann Walker (b. 1872) and they had one child, their son William Henry (b. 1894). 

In April 1912 Bairnson was chief 3rd Class steward aboard the Carpathia when that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster. 

Charles Bairnson later left the sea and worked as a master butcher in and around London. His wife Mary Ann, despondent over her failing health following a cancer diagnosis, took her own life in January 1934 by inhaling fumes from a gas stove. Charles remained a widower and returned to Birkenhead where he lived until his death in 1941 aged 71.