A PLAQUE honouring a Horwich engineer who helped design the Titanic and lost his life on its maiden voyage has been unveiled.

William Parr was aged 29 when he stepped aboard the infamous ship as part of the Harland and Wolff Guarantee Group, an elite team of nine chosen by the shipbuilding company to travel in first class and monitor the Titanic’s systems.

Mr Parr, who was previously employed at the Horwich Loco Works, would die along with 2,223 others when the ship sank in April, 1912, leaving his wife, Gertrude, and three-month-old child.

A plaque commemorating his life was unveiled on Wednesday by Horwich Heritage and the Poppins Tea Room, in Lee Lane, where Mr Parr had lived.