Ernest John Farenden was born in Emsworth, Hampshire, England in 1890 and his birth was registered in the September quarter of that year. He was the son of William Farenden (b. 1851) and Elizabeth Louisa Hammond (b. 1854); his mother and father, of Emsworth and Portsmouth respectively had married in Portsmouth in late-1876. Ernest, as well as his brother George, followed in his father's footsteps and became a baker. Farenden died in the sinking. His body, if recovered, was never identified.