Mr Charles Henry Kennedy was born at 6 Iris Street in Kirkdale, Liverpool, England on 29 May 1881. He was the son of Bartlett Kennedy, a mariner, Catherine Smith. 

Charles’s father died when he was very young and his mother worked as a charwoman to support her family. Both he and his elder brother Bartlett, like their father before them, went to sea, Bartlett as a steward and Charles as an electrical engineer. In 1911 they lived at 20 Palmerston Drive in Litherland. 

In April 1912 Kennedy was serving as an electrician aboard the Carpathia when that ship rescued the survivors of the Titanic disaster. 

Kennedy was married in 1918 to Annie Conner (b. July 1881); they had no children and continued to make their home in Crosby.

Charles Kennedy died on 24 March 1943 and was buried in Everton Cemetery.