Lady Duff Gordon was a famous British fashion designer with fashion houses in London, Chicago and New York. Gordon, 48, and her husband were rescued in a lifeboat, which only held 12 people despite its capacity to carry 40. Subsequently, tabloids reported that Lady Duff Gordon’s husband, Cosmo, paid the crew not to return to the wreckage for fear of the lifeboat being overcrowded. The couple testified at the British Inquiry into the sinking and became the subject of much ridicule.
PHOTOS: 100 Years Later: A Snapshot of Life on the Titanic
Commemorative Reissue: “A Titanic Discovery”