Letter from Titanic survivor sells for nearly $12K

BOSTON, Jan. 23 (UPI) -- A letter written by an aristocratic survivor of the Titanic disaster defending her rescue on a nearly empty lifeboat sold at auction Thursday for $11,875 in Boston.

Lady Lucy Duff-Gordon, along with her husband, Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon, were the only two passengers on board the ship to testify in the British Wreck Commissioner's inquiry into the 1912 wreck.

They both fled the sinking ship on board Lifeboat 1, which, although it could carry 40 people, scuttled only 12 people to safety.

The Duff-Gordons were ridiculed for this fact and were accused of bribing the lifeboat's rower not to return to save more passengers.

Lady Duff-Gordon's letter, which she wrote to a friend a month after the tragedy, maintained that she and her husband did the right thing.

"How kind of you to send me a cable of sympathy from New York on our safety," she wrote. "According to the way we've been treated by England on our return we didn't seem to have done the right thing in being saved at all!!!! Isn't it disgraceful."

RR Auction, which specializes in Titanic memorabilia, sold the letter for $11,875, though it was only expected to fetch $6,000.

"We remain fascinated by the Titanic tragedy and will for years to come," RR Auction Executive Vice-President Bobby Livingston said in a statement.

About 1,500 of the 2,200 passengers on board the Titanic died when it sank April 15, 1912. Hundreds more could have been saved had all the lifeboats been filled to capacity.