Despite the past trouble, Smith was again appointed to command the newest ship in the Olympic class when
Titanic left Southampton for her maiden voyage. On March 30, Smith left the
Olympic at Southampton, and set out for a quick trip up to Belfast. He arrived there in time to take command of
Titanic on April 1, relieving the command of
Herbert James Haddock. On April 9, as
Titanic was docked in Southampton, Smith went ashore and stayed overnight at his home on Winn Road, to spend time with his wife and daughter. Some sources state that he was going to retire after completing
Titanics maiden voyage, in order to spend more time with his family. on 11 April 1912, one of the last photos taken of either man. On 10 April 1912, Smith left his home at 7:00 a.m. The local paperboy, 11-year-old Albert Benham, recalled Smith saying "Alright son, I'll take my paper." He then proceeded to Berth 44, arriving at 7:30 a.m. At 8:00 a.m., he was onboard
Titanic to prepare for the
Board of Trade muster. Artist
Norman Wilkinson, acquainted with Smith, asked a quartermaster for Smith's whereabouts; the quartermaster took him as a friend to the Captain, who was then in his cabin. Smith gave Wilkinson a warm welcome but had to admit that he was too busy to conduct them on a personal tour of the liner, instead asking one of the pursers to show them around. On the bridge, Smith got the sailing report from Chief Officer
Henry Wilde; Smith finished his paperwork up tidily. After departure at noon, the huge amount of water displaced by
Titanic as she passed caused the laid-up
New York to break from her moorings and swing towards
Titanic. Quick action by the tender
Vulcan, which got between the two ships, helped to avert a premature end to the maiden voyage. On the evening of April 12, Smith dined with Bruce Ismay in the first-class restaurant on B Deck. On the evening of April 13, in the reception room, Smith entertained a party by telling them the "ship could be cut crosswise in three places and each piece would float". On 14 April 1912,
Titanics
wireless operators received six messages from other ships warning of drifting ice, which passengers on
Titanic had begun to notice during the afternoon. Although the crew was aware of ice in the vicinity, they did not reduce the ship's speed and continued to steam at .
Titanics high speed in waters where ice had been reported was later criticised as reckless, but it reflected standard maritime practice at the time. According to Fifth Officer
Harold Lowe, the custom was "to go ahead and depend upon the lookouts in the
crow's nest and the watch on the bridge to 'pick up' the ice in time to avoid hitting it." The North Atlantic liners prioritised time-keeping above all other considerations, sticking rigidly to a schedule that would guarantee arrival at an advertised time. They were frequently driven at close to their full speed, treating hazard warnings as advisories rather than calls to action. It was widely believed that ice posed little risk; close calls were not uncommon, and even head-on collisions had not been disastrous. In 1907, , a German liner, had rammed an iceberg and suffered a crushed bow, but was still able to complete her voyage. That same year Smith declared in an interview that he could not "imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that. On that morning of 14 April, Smith personally conducted the Sunday worship services in the First Class Dining Saloon, concluding it with the hymn "
Eternal Father, Strong to Save". At 12:45 p.m., Smith came up onto the bridge. That evening, Smith attended a large dinner party in the B Deck restaurant, reportedly held in his honor. Salon Steward Thomas Whiteley stated that Smith talked and joked with
John Jacob Astor. At 9:00, Captain Smith conferred with Lightoller on the bridge, and they agreed that they should be able to see an iceberg with plenty of time to avoid it. Smith left the bridge, saying, "If it becomes at all doubtful, let me know." At around 10 p.m., Smith went with Fourth Officer
Joseph Boxhall to the chart room, where Boxhall gave Smith the ship's position.
Titanic collided with an iceberg at 11:40 p.m. ship's time, tearing a series of gashes in her starboard hull below the waterline and opening six of her forward
watertight compartments to the sea. Smith immediately appeared on the
navigation bridge from his cabin, where he was informed by First Officer
William Murdoch of the collision. It was soon apparent that the ship was seriously damaged; Smith ordered the engines to stop and asked Boxhall to get designer
Thomas Andrews. At around midnight, Smith left the bridge alone, possibly to make an inspection of the flooding below. He gave a proactive order for the crew to begin uncovering and clearing the boats. Isaac Frauenthal saw Astor approach Captain Smith and tell him, "Captain, my wife is not in good health. She has gone to bed, and I don't want to get her up unless it is absolutely necessary. What is the situation?" Smith advised Astor to awaken his wife, as they might have to take to the boats. Astor "never changed expression...thanked the Captain courteously and walked rapidly, but composedly away". Stewardess Annie Robinson saw Smith on E Deck, heading towards the Mail Room with a mail clerk and Chief Purser
Hugh McElroy. She saw him come back with Andrews and overheard Andrews saying, "Well, three have gone already, Captain"; Smith and Andrews separated, with Smith heading up to the bridge, while Andrews stayed below to continue his inspection. At 12:15, Smith gave another proactive order to swing out lifeboats and to start getting passengers on deck with lifebelts on. He went to the Marconi operators' room and told Junior Marconi Officer
Harold Bride and senior wireless operator
John "Jack" Phillips to get ready to send out a call for assistance. He went up and down on deck, telling passengers to put lifebelts on. At 12:25, Andrews reported to Smith that all of the first five of the ship's compartments had been breached and that
Titanic would sink in under two hours. Captain Smith was an experienced seaman who had served for 40 years at sea, including 27 years in command. This was the first crisis of his career, and he would have known that even if all the boats were fully occupied, more than a thousand people would remain on the ship as she went down, with little or no chance of survival. It is often claimed that Smith was very ineffective and inactive in attempting to mitigate the loss of life, became paralysed by indecision and had some type of mental breakdown or nervous collapse or was seen lost in a trance-like daze as he began to grasp the enormity of what was about to happen. This is disputed by careful research of eyewitness accounts which describe Smith as taking charge and behaving coolly and calmly. He immediately began an investigation into the nature and extent of the damage, personally making two inspection trips below deck to look for damage, and preparing the wireless men for the possibility of having to call for help. He erred on the side of caution by ordering his crew to begin preparing the lifeboats for loading, and to get the passengers into their lifebelts before he was told by Andrews that the ship was sinking. Smith was observed all around the decks, personally overseeing and helping to load the lifeboats, interacting with passengers, and trying to instill urgency to follow evacuation orders while avoiding panic by not publicly informing passengers and other crew that the ship was certain to sink. After the talk with Andrews, Smith gave the order to begin loading women and children into the boats. He privately told Boxhall that the ship would sink. Second Officer Lightoller recalled afterwards that he had to cup both hands over Smith's ears to communicate over the racket of escaping steam, and said, "I yelled at the top of my voice, 'Hadn't we better get the women and children into the boats, sir?' He heard me and nodded reply." Smith then ordered Lightoller and Murdoch to "put the women and children in and lower away". He ordered passengers down to the Promenade Deck to begin boarding Boat No. 4; he personally assisted in the loadings of Boat Nos. 8,
6, and 2, where he ordered Major
Arthur Godfrey Peuchen of the
Royal Canadian Yacht Club in. He also checked in on the bridge with Boxhall to fire rockets. When passenger
Eloise Hughes Smith (no relation) pleaded whether Lucian, her husband of two months, could go with her, Captain Smith ignored her, shouting again through his megaphone the message of women and children first. Just minutes before the ship started its final plunge, Smith began releasing
Titanic crew from their duties; he went to the Marconi operators' room and released Bride and Phillips from their duties. He then carried out a final tour of the deck, telling crew members: "Now it's every man for himself." At 2:10 a.m., as Steward Edward Brown assisted men in attempting to launch Collapsible Boat A, Smith, megaphone in his hand, said, "Well, boys, do your best for the women and children, and look out for yourselves." Smith returned to the bridge. A few minutes later, Trimmer Samuel Hemming found the bridge apparently empty. At 2:20 a.m.,
Titanic sank. Smith perished along with around 1,500 others; his body was never recovered.
Death Conflicting accounts of Smith's death emerged following the disaster. Initial rumours claimed that Smith shot himself. Some press accounts speculated that Smith chose to go down with his ship and died on the bridge when it was engulfed by the sea. The
New York Herald in its 19 April 1912 edition quoted
Robert Williams Daniel as having seen Smith on the bridge, waist-high in water. Daniel's account is unlikely as he jumped from the stern as the ship sank. Captain Smith himself made statements hinting that he would go down with his ship if he was ever confronted with a disaster. A friend of Smith's, Dr. Williams, asked Captain Smith what would happen if the
Adriatic struck ice and was damaged. "Some of us would go to the bottom with the ship," was Smith's reply. A boyhood friend, William Jones said, "Ted Smith passed away just as he would have loved to do. To stand on the bridge of his vessel and go down with her was characteristic of all his actions when we were boys together." This popular belief has been perpetuated in various portrayals of the disaster, including the 1958 film
A Night to Remember and the 1997 film
Titanic. Alternatively, Smith may have jumped overboard from the bridge—after entering the bridge from the starboard side—after giving the command to abandon ship to crew on the port side. When working to free
Collapsible B, Harold Bride said he saw Smith dive from the bridge into the sea just as Collapsible B was levered off the roof of the officers' quarters. Tim Maltin suggests Bride "could here be mistaking Captain Smith for Lightoller, who we know did exactly this at this time, first swimming towards the crow's nest." However, first-class passenger Mrs. Eleanor Widener, who was in Lifeboat No. 4 (the closest to the sinking ship) at the time, and second-class passenger William John Mellors, who survived aboard Collapsible B, both stated that Smith jumped from the bridge. In addition, mess steward Cecil Fitzpatrick claimed to have seen Smith on the bridge just a few minutes before the ship began its final plunge. He was said to be with Andrews. The two put on lifebelts; Smith told Andrews, "We cannot stay any longer; she is going!" Fitzpatrick saw Andrews and Smith both jump overboard just as the water reached the bridge. Moreover, there is circumstantial evidence to suggest that Smith may have perished in the water near the overturned Collapsible B. Colonel
Archibald Gracie reported that an unknown swimmer came near the capsized and overcrowded lifeboat and that one of the men onboard told him "Hold on to what you have, old boy. One more of you aboard would sink us all." In a powerful voice, the swimmer replied "All right boys. Good luck and God bless you." The man never asked to come aboard the boat, but instead cheered its occupants saying "Good boys! Good lads!" with "the voice of authority". One of the Collapsible B survivors, fireman Walter Hurst, tried to reach him with an oar, but the man had died. Lightoller, who survived on Collapsible B, never reported seeing Smith in the water or receiving a child from him. Some have questioned whether, based on the wordings, survivors on Collapsible B would have been able to verify an individual's identity under such dimly lit and chaotic circumstances, and debate whether it was wishful thinking that made them think it was the Captain. ==Legacy==