Cigarette case’s links to infamous aristocratic survivors of Titanic
A GOLD cigarette case gifted by an aristocratic couple accused of bribing their way off the sinking
Titanic has been found hidden in a cupboard after gathering dust for 70 years.
Sir Cosmo and Lady DuffGordon are among the most infamous survivors of the disaster after they were accused of paying a bribe to ensure they escaped the ship as 1,514 others drowned.
Now an elegant cigarette case given to hero Ernest GF Brown who rescued the couple from the liner, is expected to fetch £60,000 at auction.
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’.
Mr Brown was the purser on the SS
Carpathia – a steamship which rescued more than 700 people in lifeboats after the Titanic sunk in the North Atlantic in 1912. The case, with the initials ‘EB’ on the front of it, was found during a routine house clearance at a property in Hertfordshire. The piece of historic memorabilia which “tells a tale of scandal” is set to go under the hammer at Hanson Auctioneers, in Etwall, Derbyshire, on September 7.
Auctioneers Charles Hanson said: “It really is a titanic find, a glint of light and romanticism among a tragedy.
“This couple were the glitterati of Edwardian society and it was gifted as a thank you to the man who helped save them.”
Sir Cosmo was branded a coward who pushed aside the policy of “women and children first”. But he and his designer wife Lady Duff-Gordon denied buying their way off the ship.