Mr James Stevenson was born at 11 Carolina Street in Belfast, Ireland on 16 February 1866. Hailing from a Church of Ireland family (later identifying as Presbyterian), he was the son of Joseph Stevenson, a ship’s carpenter, and Elizabeth Anderson.

Described as a seaman, Stevenson was married in Belfast’s Trinity Church on 29 November 1886 to an English-born woman, Eliza Jane Harper (b.  1864). They had three children: Joseph, James and Sarah. 

The 1901 census shows the family living at 5 Pilot Street in Belfast, for where they had lived for several years. By the time of the 1911 census they were at 1 Pilot Street and on both occasions, Stevenson was described as a ship’s fireman. 

Stevenson’s ship prior to Titanic had been the Dover. He joined Titanic at Belfast for the delivery trip to Southampton where he then disembarked.

James Stevenson died at his Pilot Street home in Belfast on 1 January 1919 aged 52 due to laryngeal cancer. His widow Eliza remarried in 1921, becoming Mrs Alexander Quinn, and she later passed away in January 1949 aged 84. James and Eliza are buried together in Belfast’s City Cemetery (plot C2 297).