Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon in 1912.
Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gordon, 5th Baronet (22 July 1862 – 20 April 1931) was a prominent Scottish landowner and sportsman, best known for the controversy surrounding his escape from the sinking of the RMS Titanic.
Biography[]
The son of Cosmo Lewis Duff-Gordon and the former Anna Maria Antrobus, Cosmo Duff-Gordon became the 5th Baronet of Halkin in 1896, his title stemming from a Royal licence conferred on his great grand-uncle in 1813 in recognition of his aid to the Crown during the Peninsular War.
In 1900, Duff-Gordon married the celebrated London fashion designer "Madame Lucile" (née Lucy Christiana Sutherland, then Mrs. James Stuart Wallace). This was a slightly risqué union, as Lucy was a divorcee whose sister, Elinor Glyn, was a notorious romance novelist.
As a sportsman, Duff-Gordon was most noted as a fencer, representing Great Britain at the 1906 Intercalated Games, winning silver in the team épée event. King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were among distinguished spectators at one of the final bouts between Sir Cosmo and his German opponent Gustav Casmir. Duff-Gordon served on the organizing committee at the 1908 Summer Olympics, appointed by Lord Desborough, chairman of the British Olympic Association.
Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon is best known for the circumstances in which he survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic in 1912, along with his wife and her secretary, Laura Mabel Francatelli. Sir Cosmo and his wife had cabin A16 in the First Class quarters on the Titanic.
The three were among only 12 people who escaped in Lifeboat #1, which had a capacity of 40. The ladies had earlier turned down places in two other lifeboats for women and children because Lady Duff-Gordon refused to be separated from her husband.
Duff-Gordon was a witness at the inquiry into the sinking. He was not "on trial" but received much press criticism which highlighted that he had boarded the lifeboat in violation of the "women and children first" policy and that, once the craft was afloat, he bribed the sailor in charge with a £5 note not to return to rescue people struggling in the water. Other witnesses confirmed that the lifeboat had ample space and that he had indeed given the sailor £5. Duff-Gordon stated that the money was to allow the sailor to buy new clothes. Cosmo denied the allegation that he disobeyed orders, maintaining there had been no women or children in the immediate vicinity when his boat was launched.
The inquiry nonetheless concluded that, if the lifeboat had returned to the wreck site, it might have been able to rescue others (the lifeboat had official space for 28 additional persons). Regarding the bribery allegation the report 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 the drowning people, is unfounded”. Despite being cleared of wrongdoing, Duff-Gordon's reputation never recovered.
Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon continued in his social and sporting interests in Scotland and later in London, where he lived at 5, Alfred Place, South Kensington.
He was estranged from his wife from 1915 until his death, although they never divorced and remained friends. He died on 20 April 1931 of natural causes and is buried at Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, Surrey. His wife died exactly four years later, on 20 April 1935.