Mr Edwin Alfred Best was born at 26 South Front in Southampton, Hampshire, England, on 29 July 1872. 

He was the son of Edwin John Best (1836-1894) and Sarah Ann Dibben (1835-1875). His parents were native to Chertsey, Surrey and Poole, Dorset respectively and they had married in Southampton in 1860. His father was a master tailor, at one point owning his own business and with several seamstresses under his employ.

Edwin had five full siblings: Marion Adela (1862-1933), Albert Edward (1864-1864), Alice Elizabeth (1865-1914, later Mrs Tom Haskell), Annie (b. 1866) and Alexandra Laura (1874-1876). 

In the year before Best’s birth, his family were living at 107 High Street, Cowes, Isle of Wight. His mother died in 1875 and his father was remarried by the end of the year to a woman named Elizabeth Mary Fryer (b. 1851), and he gained a half-sibling from that union, Elizabeth Louisa (b. 1876).

What became of this marriage is unclear and by the time of the 1881 census Edwin's father was cohabiting with a woman named Louisa Morse, née Head (b. 1846 in Southampton; d. 1918 Southampton). Louisa Morse had been married to a William Lancaster Morse and had at least three children from that relationship. Edwin gained several more half-siblings from his father’s third marriage: Mary (b. 1879), George (b. 1880), Arthur (b. 1882) and Gordon (b. 1888).

On the 1881 census, Edwin and his extended family are shown living at 14 Gladstone Terrace, St Mary, Southampton. They would be listed at 67 Oxford Street, Southampton, at the time of the 1891 census, a boarding house operated by his stepmother Louisa; Edwin, aged 18, is then described as a carpenter's apprentice. His father later died in 1894.

Edwin was married in Southampton in mid-1897 to Annie Elizabeth Pike (b. 19 March 1872 in Southampton). The couple would have four children: Edwin Alfred (b. 1898), Leonard George (b. 1899), Ivy Madge (b. 1901) and Horace John (b. 1903).

Best and his family appear on the 1901 census living in Clifford Street, St Mary, Southampton, and he was by then described as a marine steward. The 1911 census shows the family living at 89 Malmesbury Road, Shirley.

When he signed-on to the Titanic on 4 April 1912, Best gave his address as 87 Malmesbury Road, Southampton. His previous ship had been the Olympic, and as a first-class steward, he received monthly wages of £3 15s. 

Edwin Alfred Best died in the sinking, and his body, if recovered, was never identified. A death announcement was published in an unidentified newspaper:

His widow Annie never remarried and remained in Southampton where she died in 1945.

Son Edwin married May Lousia Margaret Jackson (1900-1980) in 1924 and raised a family; he died in Birkenhead in 1959.

Son Leonard married Georgina Clara Phillips (1897-1980) in 1925 and raised a family; he died in Bournemouth in 1959.

Daughter Ivy never married and died in Southampton on 22 January 1978. 

Son Horace served in the merchant navy as a shipwright; he later migrated to South Africa, where he married Gertrude Mary Brownlea (b. 1906) in 1928 and had a son, John Terence (b. 1929), before his death on 3 September 1973.