On the anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking, April 15th , an unusual survivor’s item is going on view ahead of an auction.
A life jacket worn by first-class passenger Laura Mabel Francatelli, from London, will go under the hammer 114 years after the maritime disaster at a Titanic memorabilia sale on Saturday, April 18th.
Francatelli was travelling to Chicago as the secretary of British fashion designer Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, wife of Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, who was also on board.
The life jacket, made from cork, was held in the Francatelli family for 95 years, until it was sold at an auction at Christie’s in 2007 to Aldridge’s client for a sum of £60,000 (€68,960).
RM Block
It comprises 12 cork-filled pockets of canvas with side straps, and is stencilled with the maker’s mark: Fosbery & Co, Rick Street, Limehouse, London.
Andrew Aldridge, of Wiltshire-based Henry Aldridge & Son, says Titanic memorabilia always generates interest.
“I am always asked, ‘Why all this insane interest in this disaster?’ If you take it back a notch, you’ve got a big ship that hits an iceberg and sinks and it’s a horrible loss of life. That’s Titanic in a sentence.
“But what we are talking about is every man, woman and child on that ship, from Captain Smith to emigrant families going to America or Canada to start a new life, every one of them has a story to tell. You have 2,200 chapters within that story. Those chapters are told by the ship’s memorabilia 114 years later,” he says.
One such chapter is the story of Francatelli, whose signed life jacket is up for auction with a guiding price of £250,000 – £350,000 (€287,525 – €402,535).
The life jacket was signed by Francatelli and seven other survivors, including leading fireman Charles Hendrickson, fireman George Taylor and able seaman James Horswill.
The reason for the signatures remains a mystery, according to the auctioneer.
“I have no explanation why. You rarely see memorabilia from the Edwardian era that is signed. It’s very modern.”
“It’s an exceptional object,” he adds. “This life jacket was in Ms Francatelli’s loft. It’s literally the old cliche of a fortune in her attic”.
The life jacket was on display in Titanic Belfast for a month until last weekend.
Francatelli survived the sinking alongside 11 other passengers in Lifeboat One, which would later be subject to an inquiry led by the British Board of Trade.
With a capacity of 40 people, Lifeboat One was launched with only 12 passengers aboard, the fewest to escape in any one boat that night.
Aldridge says of the life jacket: “Its value principally is the fact that it was owned by Laura, a very famous passenger. You had that connection to Lifeboat Number One and Sir Cosmo and Lady Duff-Gordon. So you have multiple strands there that add to its collectability.
“What makes this one particularly important is that it’s the only survivor life jacket that has ever been auctioned. Life jackets that were from victims, they are now in museums. They’re rare. There are only three other life jackets from survivors that are fully documented and we know whose they were so they are that rare.”
The other thing that makes the lot special, in the auctioneer’s opinion, is that from a tragedy where more than 1,500 people died, it offers a glimpse of hope.
“It represents survival. In the same sale, I have a watch from a Titanic passenger who didn’t make it that’s being sold by his family.
“That’s the thing with the Titanic. It basically encapsulates the spectrum of human emotion. The happiness of being on the ship, the excitement of sailing off, the hope. And then it turns completely on its head and you’ve got the horror and the sadness – those other emotions that are complete polar opposites.”
Lifeboat One was described in newspaper reports in 1912 as the “money boat” and “the millionaire’s boat”.
Cosmo Duff-Gordon was accused of bribing a sailor in charge of Lifeboat One with a £5 note to not return to rescue people struggling in the water.
A subsequent inquiry generated much unwanted publicity for the Duff-Gordon couple, who were well known before the disaster; he was an Olympic medallist who won silver in fencing at the 1906 games, and she was credited as an early pioneer of the fashion show.
The British inquiry into the sinking of the Titanic concluded that the charge that the Scottish Baronet got into the boat and “bribed the men in it to row away from the drowning people is unfounded”.
However, the inquiry found that he did give a sailor £5 to purchase new kit and a report in the New York Times on May 18th, 1912, said that the same sailor was coached on his evidence by the Duff-Gordon solicitor.
English journalist and liberal democrat politician Harold Spender wrote at the time: “Who shall throw the first stone? Who shall say how he would have acted if faced with the sudden and unexpected figure of death on the cold dark Atlantic?”
Duff-Gordon was cleared of the allegations and died 20 years later in his 60s, however, according to his wife, “he never lived down the shame”.
Despite this, Francatelli remained faithful to the Duff-Gordons.
“Laura Francatelli to her last breath was incredible loyal to Lady Duff-Gordon,” says Aldridge.
“If anyone said anything disrespectful whatsoever, she went for them. By all accounts she was quite the fierce lady but incredibly loyal.”
