Born Sarah Eleanor Pennington in 1861, she married Smith in 1887. Together, they had one child, Helen Melville Smith (known as Mel). Mrs. Smith, according to one report, received £1,168—a considerable sum in 1912—from White Star Line. This was almost equal to the captain’s annual salary. In addition she was the sole beneficiary of Capt. Smith’s will, to the tune of £3,186, 4s 6d—about £250,000 in today’s value and the couple’s house. By all accounts she was able to live fairly comfortably. She never remarried, as far as I know, and died in 1931 following being hit by a London taxi.

Sarah and daughter Mel:

Their daughter ‘Mel’ married a stockbroker, Mr Sidney Russell-Cooke, in 1922, but he died in 1930 as the result of a shooting accident whilst cleaning a double barrel shotgun. She appears to have been fairly well off with a noted penchant for fast sports cars; she also obtained a pilot’s license in the 1930s. When she died in 1973, Captain E. J. Smith’s hereditary line came to an end.

Below, Mel (possibly, though sometimes labeled as her mother. However hair style and clothing is indicative of the 1920s–1930s by which time her mother would have been in her late 50s or 60s).

She had two children, twins, named Simon and Priscilla. Simon never married and was killed in action in WW2 as a pilot in the RAF. Priscilla married a lawyer named John Phipps in 1946, but died of polio the following year without having children of her own.

Curiously, even Captain Smith’s imposing red brick, gabled house in Southampton has not survived. Looking rather like this one nearby, it fell victim to a Luftwaffe urban renewal project in 1940 or 41.