Titanic survivor letter up for auction in US
AFP
WASHINGTON, US- An indignant letter from a British aristocrat who survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 is coming up for auction in the United States next week.
Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, a target of public outrage after she fled the doomed ocean liner on a nearly-empty lifeboat, penned the two-page letter in London a month after the disaster.
"How kind of you to send me a cable of sympathy from New York on our safety," the fashion designer wrote to a stateside friend.
"According to the way we’ve been treated by England on our return we didn't seem to have done the right thing in being saved at all!!!! Isn't it disgraceful."
New England auction house RR Auction, which regularly handles Titanic memorabilia, said Monday the letter could fetch as much as $6,000 at the live auction in Boston on January 22.
The sale will follow a week of online bidding.
Duff-Gordon, 48, and her husband Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, 49, were traveling first class on the Titanic on its ill-starred maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York.
They became the subjects of derision when it emerged that their lifeboat carried only 12 people, including seven crew members, despite having room for 40 souls.
Some 1,500 died when the Titanic went down off Newfoundland on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, in what remains the most storied maritime tragedy of all time.
The couple were alleged to have bribed the crew in order not to go back to rescue other survivors -- a claim that a British inquiry concluded was unfounded.
They were the only passengers called to testify before the inquiry, conducted by the British Wreck Commissioner in London from May through mid-July 2012.
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"According to the way we’ve been treated by England on our return we didn't seem to have done the right thing in being saved at all!!!! Isn't it disgraceful."
New England auction house RR Auction, which regularly handles Titanic memorabilia, said Monday the letter could fetch as much as $6,000 at the live auction in Boston on January 22.
The sale will follow a week of online bidding.
Duff-Gordon, 48, and her husband Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, 49, were traveling first class on the Titanic on its ill-starred maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York.
They became the subjects of derision when it emerged that their lifeboat carried only 12 people, including seven crew members, despite having room for 40 souls.
Some 1,500 died when the Titanic went down off Newfoundland on April 15, 1912 after hitting an iceberg, in what remains the most storied maritime tragedy of all time.
The couple were alleged to have bribed the crew in order not to go back to rescue other survivors -- a claim that a British inquiry concluded was unfounded.
They were the only passengers called to testify before the inquiry, conducted by the British Wreck Commissioner in London from May through mid-July 2012.
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