Cursed man met his doom in the Titanic tragedy
They were happy to see us lowered away and told us they would be all right as the ship could not sink Julia Tyrell Cavendish
READERS may be familiar with the tale of the ‘cursed mummy’ whose vengeful wrath was the ‘real’ reason why the RMS Titanic sank with the loss of 1,500 lives in the early hours of April 15, 1912. The story goes that the mummy, known as the ‘Princess of Amen-ra’ brought death and disaster upon all who touched her; she was being transported across the Atlantic in the cargo hold of the Titanic by an American collector who had purchased her after the despairing British Museum rid themselves of the cursed Egyptian.
A fantastical, chilling horror story, and also completely untrue – the Titanic did not carry any mummies on its ill-fated maiden voyage, and in fact the real ‘Princess of Amen-ra’ is a mummy-less Egyptian coffin lid still safely displayed at the British Museum.
However, it may be that one of the passengers travelling upon the infamous White Star Line ocean liner did indeed carry a curse – perhaps even two! Stranger still, these curses were not the product of some ancient, exotic princess but rather homegrown maledictions from Staffordshire…
Amongst the glittering glamorous First Class passengers was an aspiring politician and his young American wife – Mr and Mrs Tyrell William Cavendish of Little Onn Hall, near Church Eaton, Staffordshire.
Tyrell William Cavendish was aged 36 when he boarded the Titanic at
Southampton with his 25-year-old wife, Julia Florence, and her lady’s maid, 26-year-old Ellen ‘Nellie’ Mary Barber, on April 10, 1912. Having paid £78, 7 shillings (approximately £10,000 today) to travel First Class, they occupied cabin C46 on ‘C’ Deck.
The couple were travelling to visit Julia’s father, millionaire department store owner Henry Siegel, at his home in Mamaroneck, New York – Tyrell was hoping that his father-in-law would sponsor him to stand as MP for Bury St Edmunds in Suffolk. They had originally planned to take their two young sons – 3-year-old Henry Siegel Cavendish and 1-year-old Geoffrey Manners – to see their American grandfather. However, little Geoffrey had fallen ill so it was decided to leave the boys back at home in Staffordshire.
The Cavendish party was also to have included Tyrell’s friend, Lieutenant-commander Norman Carlyle Craig, MP for the Isle of Thanet in Kent. However, he cancelled with no apparent reason at very short notice – so short in fact, that his name had already been printed in the list of First Class passengers and it was thought at first he was among the victims of the sinking.
It is believed that the Cavendishes were acquainted with another of the passengers, the Countess of Rothes, and they may have been among the six passengers who dined at her table in the First Class Dining Room. Otherwise, it seems that the couple kept themselves to themselves – they feature in very few eyewitness accounts and presumably did not draw enough attention to create a lasting impression. We do know that, just five years into their marriage, the Cavendishes were still very much in love. On the night of April 14, Julia was asleep in cabin C46 when the Titanic struck the infamous iceberg just before midnight. Tyrell then woke her, telling her to get dressed in her warmest clothes and to bring money and jewellery. As Julia prepared to leave the cabin, her maid Nellie rushed up from a lower deck to say that trunks were floating in the encroaching, rising water. Outside, they found distress rockets being launched into the clear night sky. Julia was noted by survivor Lucy Duff Gordon as being in a crowd gathered in the boat deck foyer shortly before the order to evacuate was given. Tyrell Cavendish told his wife that she must think of their children and climb into a lifeboat.
Julia and her maid Nellie climbed into lifeboat number 6, the second boat to be launched from the Titanic that night. Tyrell threw two rugs into the boat after them, but refused to leave the ship.
As Julia later recalled: “My husband kissed me and bade me remain in the boat, declaring he was all right. There was no light, but the sky was clear. Bright skies illuminated the scene of the disaster. Just as the lifeboat was lowered I again kissed my husband. He assured me he would rather stay on the boat, thinking he would be safe. He told me to go and that he would stay on the ship with the other men. They were happy to see us lowered away in the boats and kept telling us they would be all right as the ship could not sink.
“As the boat reached the water there were twenty-three women in the boat and two men to guide and row her. Many of us women implored men on the upper deck to come to our succour, but most of them said they could not row. One man there was about to get in the boat, but a sailor, after questioning him threw him aside. A Canadian, who stated that he could row turned to a group of men on the deck who were watching the proceedings and said: ‘I can row, but if there is room for one more let it be a woman.’
“Most of the women in the boat I was in were in their bare feet. I can still see those husbands kissing their wives and telling them goodbye. I can see the sailors standing by so calm and brave. The sight of those good men who gave their lives for others will always be with me. Words can’t tell the tale of their sacrifice. The hours we spent in that small boat after those heroic men went down were hours of torture. When we got on the Carpathia [the ship that rescued the survivors] we were treated with the utmost consideration. I am prostrated by the loss of my husband, but rejoice in the fact that my children are safe, having been left at home.”
Lucy Duff Gordon, who had earlier seen Julia on the Titanic’s boat deck, recalled in her memoirs: “One of the women I talked to was Mrs Turrell (sic) Cavendish, the daughter of Mr Henry Siegel. She was heartbroken over the loss of her husband, who had put her in one of the first boats to leave the wreck and had then gone back to save other women and children. The boat in which she had escaped had carried twenty-four women and only two sailors to row them. One of these men was so overcome by the cold that he collapsed in the bottom of the boat, and the women had taken their turn at the oars, and somehow or other managed to get the boat alongside the Carpathia. Several of them had been almost frozen during the night, for they were only half dressed and without shoes or stockings...”
While aboard the Carpathia, Julia Cavendish showed her appreciation to surviving officers and seamen from the Titanic by arranging to have them re-clothed at her own expense from her father’s New York department
They jumped overboard – a drop of 60ft – into the water. Mr Cavendish dropped on to a piece of ice Walsall Advertiser
store. From the rescue vessel, she sent a ‘Marconigram’ (telegram) to Siegel Cooper and Co., 6th Avenue, New York, requesting “25 Coats, 19 Trousers medium weight for destitute, deliver immediately at Pier 54 to Officer C. H. Lightoller. Julia”
What happened to Tyrell William Cavendish after he had kissed his wife goodbye?
According to an article published in the Walsall Advertiser on May 11, 1912: “Mr. Tyrell Cavendish was one the heroes the Titanic disaster. He did great work in helping place women and men in the lifeboats. One touching scene, told by two survivors, was when he placed his wife in the boat he said ‘Good-bye, dear I will be with you soon.’ When the last boat had left the sinking vessel, [Mr Cavendish said to a friend] ‘Well, there are no more boats to fill, we will shake hands and hope that we will meet again soon.’
“Then they both jumped overboard – a drop of 60ft – into the water. The survivor believes that Mr Cavendish must have dropped on to a piece of ice as he did not see him again.”
In one account, it was alleged that Cavendish “with revolver at hand, kept at bay men who were trying to pull women out of the lifeboats and take their places.” This all sounds very dramatic but is probably untrue.
After perishing during the sinking (perhaps being killed in the jump down to the icy waters some 60 feet below), Tyrell’s body was later recovered by the Mackay-bennett, the unfortunate vessel that had the grim job of gathering the victims of the disaster. His was the 172nd body to be plucked from the water and was one of the last to be found. From the official description of his body, we do know what he was wearing when the Titanic went down:
“Clothing – black striped flannel suit; personal effects – gold watch; boots; £7; 1 pair of gold cufflinks and stud.”
The embalmed Mr Cavendish completed his journey to Mamaroneck, New York, courtesy of Simpson, Crawford and Co (Funeral Directors). There, his widow Julia had the body cremated following a service at the local Episcopal church. She then returned to England with her husband’s ashes and her faithful maid, Nellie Barber, where she was reunited with her two young sons. The ashes were interred at the Golder’s Green crematorium in London. A tragic tale – but how, you may wonder, has this got anything to do with an old Staffordshire curse or two…?
Tyrell’s home at Little Onn Hall is key to this twist in his story and troubled him so much that he had a premonition that the voyage would end in disaster and so he had his will written the day before the Titanic sailed – April 9, 1912 – according to a report in the Walsall Advertiser in June 1912, under the heading Titanic Victim £95,000 Will Drawn on Eve of Sailing.
Today the sum would be worth over £11 millions.
All will be revealed in next week’s Bugle…