Lady Duff-Gordon

Born on the 13th June 1863 in London, England, Lucy Christiana Sutherland, later Lady Duff-Gordon, had an eventful early life, although nothing could have prepared her for the drama she would later encounter.

After an unhappy marriage marred by a string of affairs, Lucy separated from her first husband, James Stuart Wallace, in 1890.

By that time she had a daughter, Esme, and needed to find a way to support them both.

And so she turned to something that had been a passion for most of her life.

Lucy was a talented dressmaker with an eye for the latest fashions.

In 1893 she opened her own store, Maison Lucile, in London’s West End.

Soon, she was designing clothing for the upper echelons of British society, not to mention catching the eye of one of Britain’s most eligible bachelors.

A sportsman descended from Scottish aristocracy, Cosmo Duff-Gordon had recently inherited the title of 5th Baronet of Halkin. And as such, the divorced Lucy wasn’t exactly considered a perfect match.

But the pair defied convention and married in 1900.

Meanwhile, her business went from strength to strength.

In 1910 she opened a store in New York City, followed by another in Paris the following year.

In fact, it was while working at her studio in the French capital that she received the telegram that would change her life.

On April 7, 1912, Lucy was contacted by the managers of her American store.

Apparently, her presence was urgently required to oversee the business back in New York.

Keen to make the crossing as quickly as possible, she headed to the offices of the White Star Line to book passage across the Atlantic.

Sir Cosmo agreed to accompany his wife on the ill-fated Titanic. But unlike some of the celebrities traveling on the liner, the couple bought their tickets under an alias, probably hoping to escape the attention of the press.

Unfortunately, though, they would soon find themselves under more scrutiny than ever before.

Lucy’s stateroom, it seems, was a source of great comfort. Equipped with an electric heater and decked out in pink curtains and cushions, it would have provided a cozy retreat amidst the often-chill Atlantic air.

Meanwhile, Cosmo occupied a separate cabin on the other side of the hallway.

For four days, the Titanic glided steadily towards New York, setting such a pace that some speculated a new record would be broken.

On the morning of April 14, there was nothing to indicate the trouble that lay ahead.

According to reports, the sea was like glass, although the temperature plummeted as the day progressed.

After a lively evening in the dining saloon, Lucy and Cosmo headed to their separate staterooms on the promenade deck.

But they had not been in bed for long, before a terrible noise tore through the ship.

Alone in her stateroom, Lucy was woken by a strange rumbling sound and went to alert her husband of the situation.

By this time, she recalled, there were several other people milling around the deck, but officers assured them that there was nothing to worry about, and the majority returned to bed.

Soon, though, it became clear that there was plenty to worry about indeed.

Alerted by the sound of the ship’s engines stopping, Lucy roused Cosmo once more and pleaded with him to find out more about their situation.

Reluctantly, he went and returned with a grave face.

At that, the Duff-Gordons dressed in their warmest clothes and headed out to meet their fate.

For those in the know, it became a certainty that the Titanic would sink.

But for the passengers wandering the decks of the liner, it took a while for reality to set in.

Even when Captain Smith gave the order to launch the lifeboats, many were reluctant to leave the ship and be cast out into the dark gloomy ocean.

According to Lucy’s memoir, and the testimony that she would give at the official inquiry, most of the lifeboats had already been dispatched by the time that she and her husband reached them.

But just as she began to despair, she claimed, they spotted another, empty, lifeboat still suspended from the ship’s davits.

Allegedly, the Duff-Gordons were ushered into the remaining boat, along with two American passengers who were standing nearby.

Despite the captain’s orders of “women and children first,” the vessel was put to sea with three male passengers and a crew of seven men on board.

Shockingly, that made for a total of 12 passengers in a boat that was built to carry 40.

Eventually, the Duff-Gordons’ lifeboat was picked up by the Carpathia, which had steamed through the night to reach the ailing Titanic.

On April 18, one day after their scheduled arrival, the surviving passengers sailed into New York.

There, they were met by a huge crowd of onlookers waiting desperately for news of their loved ones.

In New York, the world’s press had assembled, desperate for the latest take on a tragedy that had shocked the world.

In the days and weeks that followed, the lines between fact and fiction would become blurred.

It emerged that many women and children from second and third class had perished, while 57 men from first class had been saved. The public soon turned on the survivors.

For the male passengers who somehow made it onto a lifeboat despite the fact that women and children were still on board, their survival became a stigma that would dog them for the rest of their lives.

Within days of the sinking, stories had begun to emerge of a so-called “Millionaire’s Boat” commandeered by some of the Titanic's wealthiest passengers.

Before long, Lucy realized that the rumors concerned their own lifeboat, and that wasn’t the worst part.

According to the stories making the rounds, the Duff-Gordons had begged the crewmen not to return to the shipwreck and search for survivors, afraid that their boat would be overwhelmed.

In fact, people said, Cosmo had even bribed them with $5 a piece to ensure their compliance.

In both her memoirs and her official testimony, Lucy denied that she had ever told the crewmen not to return to the Titanic.

The alleged bribe, she said, was a goodwill gesture on Cosmo’s behalf, intended to help the crewmen get back on their feet after the disaster.

On May 17th 1912, Cosmo took the stand at the official inquiry into the disaster, followed by Lucy three days later.

In front of an audience of eager spectators, they refuted the claim that they had used bribery to prevent the crew from returning to the wreck.

Eventually, the court agreed, exonerating them of any wrongdoing.

For Lucy, that was largely the end of the ordeal.

Her career flourished, and even today her garments can be seen in museums around the world.

But sadly, Cosmo was never quite the same, his reputation forever sullied by the rumors of his bribery.

Three years after the sinking, the Duff-Gordons parted ways, never to reconcile.

Lucy Duff-Gordon had another close call three years after surviving the Titanic, when she booked passage aboard the final voyage of the RMS Lusitania.

It was reported in the press that she cancelled her trip due to illness.

The Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo on 7th May 1915.

Lady Duff-Gordon died of breast cancer, in a London nursing home in 1935, aged 71.

The date of her death, 20th April, was the fourth anniversary of her husband's death.

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Source~ClaireHarding/SocialEntrepreneur

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