Description:Modern portrait, based on a press photograph, of Mrs Julia Florence Cavendish (1887-1963). The daughter of New York millionaire Henry Siegel, she married Tyrell William Cavendish of Crakemarsh Hall (near Uttoxeter) in 1907 at the age of 19. After moving to Suffolk, the couple moved back to Staffordshire in 1910 and rented Little Onn Hall, near Church Eaton.
In April 1912, Julia and her husband set out on a Transatlantic voyage to visit her father, booking passage aboard the ill-fated R.M.S. Titanic. After the ship struck an iceberg, Julia and her maid Ellen Barber were put in lifeboat no. 6 and survived the tragedy. Julia generously donated clothing from her father's New York department store to the surviving crew members, as they had lost everything in the sinking. Unfortunately, her husband Tyrell died in the disaster although his body was recovered and later cremated in New York. His ashes were later interred at Golders Green crematorium in London.
Heartbroken and widowed at just 25 years of age, Julia returned to Staffordshire to raise her two young sons. Shortly after the disaster, she moved from Little Onn Hall to Knightley Grange, near Gnosall, although she may not have lived there very long. Her husband's will had left her well provided for and the family also had a home in London. Julia never remarried and in 1935, following the death of her mother-in-law, Elizabeth Cavendish, she moved to Crakemarsh Hall where she would live for the next 30 years. She did not speak of her experiences aboard the Titanic or the loss of her husband until shortly before her death, when she recorded her memories in a letter to her two sons.
Julia died in 1963 and was cremated, her ashes being interred with those of her husband at Golders Green crematorium.