Commander Joseph Groves Boxhall RD RNR (23 March 1884 – 25 April 1967) was the Fourth Officer on the RMS Titanic, and later served as a naval officer in World War I.

Boxhall was born in Hull in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England, the second child of Miriam and Captain Joseph Boxhall sr.. He was born into an established seafaring tradition: His grandfather had been a mariner, his uncle was a Trinity House buoymaster and Board of Trade official, and his father was a respected master with the Wilson Line of Hull.

Boxhall followed in the footsteps of his ancestors on 2 June 1899, when he joined his first ship, a barque of the William Thomas Line of Liverpool. Boxhall's apprenticeship lasted four years, during which time he travelled extensively. He then went to work with his father at Wilson Line and, after obtaining his Master's and Extra-Master's certifications in September 1907, joined the White Star Line. He served on White Star's liners RMS Oceanic and Arabic before moving to the Titanic as Fourth Officer in 1912; he was then 28 years old.

William Murdoch (sometimes spelled Murdock) (21 August 1754 – 15 November 1839) was a Scottish engineer and long-term inventor.

Murdoch was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt and worked for them in Cornwall, as a steam engine erector for ten years, spending most of the rest of his life in Birmingham, England.

He was the inventor of the oscillating steam engine, and gas lighting is attributed to him in the early 1790s, also the term "gasometer". However, Archibald Cochrane, ninth Earl of Dundonald, had already in 1789 used gas for lighting his family estate. Murdoch also made innovations to the steam engine, including the sun and planet gear and D slide valve. He invented the steam gun and the pneumatic tube message system, and worked on one of the first British paddle steamers to cross the English Channel. Murdoch built a prototype steam locomotive in 1784 and made a number of discoveries in chemistry.

He remained an employee and later a partner of Boulton & Watt until the 1830s, and his reputation as an inventor has been obscured by the reputations of Boulton and Watt and the firm they founded.