£60k for Titanic ‘bribe’ couple’s gift
A GOLD cigarette case once owned by an aristocratic couple accused of bribing their way off the sinking Titanic is expected to fetch £60,000 at auction.
Sir Cosmo and Lady DuffGordon gave the elegant keepsake to Ernest Brown who helped them when the liner sank on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York in 1912. More than 1,500 died.
Mr Brown was the purser on the Carpathia, a steamship which rescued 700 people stranded in lifeboats in the icy North Atlantic.
The Asprey case is inscribed with the message: “Ernest G F Brown RNR, in remembrance of kindness. SS Carpathia, from Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon.”
Sir Cosmo and his wife were accused of earlier paying Titanic crew a bribe to get on the first lifeboat to safety.
He was later branded a coward for allegedly ignoring the “women and children first” policy to survive, which he and his fashion designer wife denied.
They said they only gave the men money afterwards as a gesture of goodwill.
The cigarette case, with the initials EB, was found during a house clearance at a property in Hertfordshire. It will be auctioned at Hanson auctioneers, in Etwall, Derbyshire, on September 7.
Auctioneer Charles Hanson said he expected it will reach up to £60,000. He added: “This couple were the glitterati of Edwardian society and it was gifted as a thank you to the man who helped save them.”