Ettore Luigi Valvassori was born on 1 August 1876 in Montodine, Cremona, Lombardy, Italy.

He came to England in the early 1900s and he was married to Sellina Fiorina Cagna (b. 1885)--a dressmaker and also of Italian birth--in Westminster, London in 1906. They had a daughter the following year, Annita Francesca. He, his wife and child appear on the 1911 census living at 7 Great Russell Street, Bloomsbury, St Giles, London and he was described as a restaurant waiter.

When he signed on to the Titanic on 6 April 1912, Ettore gave his address as 7 Great Russell Street, London and his age as 37 (?). The Titanic was his first ship and he came aboard on 10 April 1912.

Ettore Valvassori died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

His widow Sellina, it appears, never remarried and apparently remained living in London until at least the 1930s, living at 32 Charring Cross Mansions, Westminster. Their daughter Annita was married in Westminster in 1934 to a man named Natale Accorsi but the whereabouts of the family thereafter is unknown and it appears they returned to Italy.