See item level records.

Administrative / biographical background
Smith was born at the City of London Hospital in 1872. His father Frederick William Smith was a police constable. As a boy he worked with his uncle in the Grimsby fishing fleet and trained on the Marine Society ship WARSPITE at Woolwich. From 1888 onwards he was engaged on cargo vessels, including the ketch COCK OF THE WALK (1876) of Weymouth, and the steamers CROSSHILL (1883) and IRTHINGTON (1880). At the time of his marriage to Ellen Jameson at Lambeth in 1894 he was working as a bacon dryer in London. Later he was an insurance agent for Refuge Assurance and then the Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society.