Mr William Taggart was born in Belfast, Ireland on 9 October 1887. Hailing from a Church of Ireland family, he was the son of William Taggart, a blacksmith, and Mary Martin. 

He was married in St John’s Church, Whitehouse, Co Antrim on 18 May 1908 to Charlotte Woodside (b. 1888), a native of Greencastle in north Belfast. By 1911 the couple were living at 75 Weir Street in Belfast and William was described as a ship labourer. Their first child William was born in May 1910 and would be followed by another son later in 1911 and a daughter in 1914. 

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

He received the news concerning the loss of Titanic and was so devastated (according to family oral history) that he never worked again. He was seriously wounded in the trenches of World War One in 1917 whilst helping wounded comrades back into the trenches under heavy German machine-gun fire.

Although he was not killed in action this was the cause of his untimely death. After reaching hospital, tests were done to see if an operation could remove a bullet, which had lodged itself in his spine. It was deemed impossible to do so without leaving Taggart crippled. Sometime between 1919 and 1921 the bullet dislodged itself from his spine and floated up to his heart and killed him. - David Morrison Taggart