WRECK OF TITANIC

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LVI, Issue 41, 24 May 1935, Page 6

WRECK OF TITANIC

DEATH OF A SURVIVOR.

LADY DUFF GORDON.

(From the Guardian's Special Correspondent—By Air Mail).

LONDON, April 27

The de^th this week of Lady Duff Gordon—widow of Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon, fifth baronet—world-famous dress designer, inventor of the modern mannequin parade, at the age of 71, vividly recalls the wreck of the Titanic. That world tragedy of April, 1912, was an individual tragedy for the Duff Gordons, although they both survived.

When survivors reached New York in the Carpathia, ar seaman had a story to tell of the disaster. He said that one boat —"the millionaires' boat," he called it—got away first from the sinking ship. He said that .the Duff Gordons were in it. He said that Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon gave each member of the crew £5 not to go back and pick up survivors. In May, 1912, the court of inquiry into the disaster was, held in London. Most of the crowd present were women when the Duff Gordons gave evidence. Many of the women—gay with feather and flower in the elaborate fashion of the day—had been dressed, by "Lucille of London," as Lady Duff Gordon was known. The baronet helped his wife to the witness stand. Lorgnettes were raised, opera glasses focussed. The great fight of the day was on: Attor-ney-General Sir Rufus Isaacs, now Lord Reading, greatest cross-exam-iner of his day, versus "Lucile." Lady Duff Gordon denied that she had opposed the boat's return to the doomed liner. She was lying, seasick to death, in the stern.

Two months later the court of inquiry presented its report. The commissioner stated: "The very gross charge against Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon—that, having got into No. 1 boat, he bribed the men in it to row away from drowning people-—is unfounded. All the same, I think that if he had encouraged the men to return to the position where the Titanic had foundered, they would probably have made an effort to do so and could have saved some lives."