The Ghost of the Captain Smith from the Titanic

The Life of Captain Smith

Edward John Smith was a British sea captain and naval officer, born in 1850 in Stoke-on-Trent in England. At the age of 13, he left his childhood home and went to sea. In 1880, he joined the White Star Line as an officer, beginning a long career in the British Merchant Navy.

There were many witnesses that came forward with different stories about him. Some of the earliest accounts of the captain’s demise turned out to be people that wasn’t even on the passenger list. So what really happened that night? Most witnesses said he appeared on the bridge of the Titanic just moments after impact, asking what happened. .

“An iceberg, sir,” First Officer William Murdoch told him. The rest is history, and also a bit of mystery. Some say that he went into shock, and that he became quite passive when the work of getting people into the lifeboats started.

*Captain Edward John Smith at the Titanic bridge on the morning of April 10th, 1912*

Some say that he shot himself with a pistol, wireless operator Harold Bride, said he’d seen Smith “dive from the bridge into the sea.” Some say that he was swept off by a wave. Titanic fireman Harry Senior, Smith jumped off the ship with “an infant clutched tenderly in his arms,” swam to a nearby lifeboat, handed off the child and swam back toward the Titanic, saying, “I will follow the ship.”

“[Smith] took one of the children standing by him on the bridge and jumped into the sea,” fireman James McGann recounted. “He endeavored to reach the overturned boat but did not succeed. That was the last I saw of Captain Smith … He held the little girl under one arm as he jumped into the sea and endeavored to reach the nearest lifeboat with the child.”

Thomas Whiteley, a first class steward, also described seeing the captain trying to help a baby into a lifeboat.

“Some women tried to drag him on the boat, but he pulled away from them and said: ‘Save yourselves,’” Whiteley recalled. “I saw him go under, and he never came up.”

Author Wyn Craig Wade wrote in The Titanic: End of a Dream, “Captain Smith had at least five different deaths, from heroic to ignominious.” His final moments remain shrouded in uncertainty, inspiring stories that he either took his own life or was swept away by a wave only to return to his doomed vessel.

Though his body was never found, his spirit may not have stayed at sea.

The Ghost of Captain Smith and his Final Goodbye

One of the strange phenomena that happened after the Titanic sank, was the widows of sailors and crew members waking in the nights, hearing their names called out by their loved ones, or seeing their ghosts, long before they knew about the ship sinking.

According to one eerie legend, his wife, Sarah Eleanor Smith, saw his ghost appear in their home before the world had even learned of the Titanic’s fate. This must have been in their home in a red brick, twin-gabled house named “Woodhead” on Winn Road in Highfield, Southampton, Hampshire.

She claimed he stood before her in her drawing room, dripping wet and silent, as if to say his final goodbye. He walked across the carpet to the window, not saying a word before vanishing into thin air as he reached the window. According to Mrs. Smith, this is when she learned about her husband’s death.

The Haunted Britannia Adelphi Hotel in Liverpool

This was not the last time people claimed to have witnessed his ghost roaming though. Another place he is said to have haunted is the Adelphy Hotel in Liverpool, a hotel often dubbed, the most haunted hotel in the UK.

It is said that The Sefton Suite in the hotel is an exact replica of the first-class smoking room on the ship. A paranormal researcher claims to have witnessed three men haunting the room, saying it was Smith together with two other naval officers who also went down with the ship. It is however disputed that the Sefton Suite is a replica or built by the same craftsmen that the myth claims.

*From left to right: First Officer William M Murdoch, Chief Engineer Joseph Evans, Fourth Officer David Alexander and Capt. Edward J. Smith seen on the Olympic.*

His Ghost Haunting Baltimore

One of the strangest stories though, is how a mariner claims to have seen the captain in different places in Baltimore, Maryland over a 17-year period and that he hadn’t died at all. Peter Pryal was a businessman who claimed to have been a Quartermaster on the steamship Majestic for the White Star liner over 30 years ago when Captain Smith was his captain..

Mr. Pryal said that he saw the Captain on a Wednesday morning, and to confirm it was him, he went to the same spot that Friday and saw the Captain again. At 9 o’clock the following Friday or Saturday morning, he went to the corner of St. Paul and Baltimore Streets where he had seen him last and stood on the corner for almost an hour. To his astonishment, he saw the same man approaching him, he said, ‘Captain Smith, how are you?‘ The mystery man replied, ‘Very well, but please don’t detain me, I am on business.’

Mr. Pryal followed the man to St. Paul and Fayette Streets. Several times the supposed Captain turned to see Mr. Pryal followed him, and he ducked into the Calvert Building to try to lose him in the crowd. He caught up with the Captain as he was boarding a car or a train to Washington and the Captain said:

‘Be good, shipmate, until we meet again.’

Mr. Pryal was shocked as he believed him to be dead. He had a nervous breakdown in public and got himself home, but his doctor attested that he was: “absolutely sane and not given to hallucinations.” But what really happened here? Did he see his ghosts? Did he uncover the truth that the Captain had in fact survived? Or was it all just a big misunderstanding?

The Haunting of the SS Winterhaven

In the 70s, another ghost story emerged connected to the Titanic and the ghost of the captain. Although there aren’t many sources for this story online before 2008. In 1977, Second Officer Leonard Bishop gave a tour of the SS Winterhaven. A soft-spoken brit was among the passengers, and something about this particular passenger felt different, although Bishop couldn’t explain why. He turned away for a minute, and when he looked back at the passenger, he was gone.

This would all fall into place years later, when Bishop stumbled across a photo of Captain Smith and saw that it was the passenger that he had taken on a tour.

Haunting his Childhood home in Stoke on Trent

Another place Smith is said to be haunting, is his childhood home in Stoke on Trent in Staffordshire. The home was built in the early 19th century and was used as a corner shop by Captain Smith’s mother. He lived there until he was thirteen and he went to sea.

Most of the ghost stories come from the house owners, Neil and Louise Bronner who rented the house out to many tenants for a decade before they sold it in 2012. Many came back with a ghost story or two.

There have been those who claimed to have seen his ghost in the bedroom. A man was alone in his bed one day and saw the apparition in the captain. The man in the house had apparently been at sea himself. Neil also got a phone call about a uniformed man walking around in the kitchen.

On a side note, there used to be a story circling around that a mirror from his home was haunted by him as well. According to the story, he put it on his dressing table before setting sail on Titanic. According to the story, his maid kept seeing his face in the mirror on the anniversary of the sinking.

According to the story, her name was Ethelwynne, and was offered to take one item from his home when he went down with the ship after the vessel hit an iceberg on April 14, 1912 as a keepsake and in lieu of wages. She chose this and had it in her and her family’s possession until it was found in an estate sale.

Eventually the mirror ended up in auction houses with the story attached to it, and landed in ghost hunter Zac Bagan’s collection. But how true is this story though? Coincidentally, the auction started a couple of months or so in 2018, when a couple in Belfast snapped a picture in a bar they claimed was his ghost. How much of a coincidence is it that the two different hauntings of the same ghost appeared so close together? Kenny Biddle for the Skeptical Inquirer did a longer piece about why the mirror and its haunted story was most likely not true at all.

His Ghost in a Pub in Belfast

Talking about the picture snapped in Belfast, this is perhaps the lates sighting and big story about the ghost of the Captain.

Cheryl and Luke Arkless were in Robinsons bar in Belfast one evening in 2018. The couple, both 34 at the time, were visiting from Devon and sat down for a drink on July 29th. Cheryl’s mother in law took, in a matter of seconds, three pictures of them. According to themselves, they felt a cold wind on their backs, but didn’t think much of it until they were back in England and saw something strange in the photos. As Cheryl herself stated:

‘I called my husband and he said it was probably a person walking behind us very fast. But the thing is, everything around us is crystal clear apart from that blur. I was very skeptical at first but now I really think it looks like a man. There is a strong ‘Titanic’ background in the bar, and the more you look at the more he resembles the captain. On the right-hand side behind us, a band was playing, so he looks as if he is watching the band.’

According to ghost hunters Paranormal Investigations UK, they analyzed the photo and tested it for manipulation. According to Cheryl, they told her the photo was untampered and unexplainable. Now, why this bar? According to Cheryl, the pub had not experienced anything like it when she called and let them know about the picture.

It’s important to note that the pub is filled with original memorabilia from the Titanic like letters and post cards written on board, first and second class China from the White Star Line vessels. Could it have been Captain Smith haunting the bar close to where the Titanic first set sail?

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