Mr Walter Smith was born in Belfast, Ireland around 1868. Coming from a Church of Ireland family, he was the son of Robert Smith, a pawnbroker, and Catherine McKee. 

By 1911 Walter was living at 11 Abingdon Street in Belfast—the home address of his married sister Martha Jane Campbell and her family—and he was described as an unmarried sailor.

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

Walter Smith worked at sea through WWI and into the 1920s. He lived at Abingdon Terrace for the rest of his life and was never married. He died on 22 February 1932 aged 63 and was buried in Belfast’s City Cemetery (plot B 313).