Cosmo Duff Gordon
Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff-Gordon, 5th Baronet (born July 22, 1862 in London , † April 20, 1931 in South Kensington ) was a British fencer and landowner who won the silver medal with the sword team at the 1906 Olympic Intermediate Games and in April 1912 survived the sinking of the RMS Titanic .
biography
Cosmo Edmund Duff Gordon was born in 1862 as the eldest son of Cosmo Lewis Duff Gordon (1812–1876) and his wife Anna Maria Antrobus († 1898).
In 1896 he inherited the British title of 5th Baronet , of Halkin in the County of Ayr, created in 1813 from a cousin . In the same year he met the British couturier and designer Lucy Christiana Sutherland , sister of the writer and screenwriter Elinor Glyn , whom he married in 1900.
In 1906 he took part in the Olympic Intermediate Games in Athens and won the silver medal with the epee team. At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, he was a member of the organizing committee of the fencing events.
In 1912, Duff Gordon was a passenger on the Titanic with his wife and their secretary Laura Mabel Francatelli , which collided with an iceberg on April 14 at 11:40 p.m. on the North Atlantic and sank on April 15 at 2:20 a.m. He escorted his wife and her secretary to lifeboat number 1 at around 1:00 am and was lucky enough to get in touch with first officer William M. Murdoch , who followed the so-called Birkenhead principle “ Women and children first! “Not quite as strict as some of his colleagues interpreted and also let him get on when asked. So he later got on board the RMS Carpathia rushed to the rescue . There he paid the crew members of the Titanic who had been in his boat a previously promised five pounds as thanks and compensation for the loss of their belongings and their loss of earnings (with the sinking of the ship, the entitlement to their wages for the time afterwards ended ).
Upon his return to England, Duff Gordon was summoned to the British Commission of Inquiry into the disaster. There he had to counter the rumors that he had bribed the crew of the not fully manned lifeboat so that they would not row back to the scene of the accident after the sinking of the ship in order to take in possible survivors who might have caused the boat to capsize . In the committee's final report, however, he was acquitted of any allegation.
Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff Gordon died in 1931 at the age of 68. Since he remained childless, his younger brother inherited his title of nobility.
In the 1997 film adaptation of the Titanic , he was portrayed by Martin Jarvis .
Web links
- Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon in the Encyclopedia Titanica (English)
- Sir Cosmo Edmund Duff Gordon, 5th Bt. On thepeerage.com
Individual evidence
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Maurice Duff-Gordon | Baronet, of Halkin 1896-1931 |
Henry Duff-Gordon |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Duff Gordon, Cosmo |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Duff-Gordon, Sir Cosmo Edmund, 5th Baronet (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British sport fencer and landowner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 22, 1862 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 20, 1931 |
| Place of death | South Kensington |