It was a bond forged in the crucible of disaster, an unlikely friendship born from the icy waters of the North Atlantic. When the magnificent RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on Wednesday, April 10, 1912, its passengers represented a stark cross-section of Edwardian society. Among them were Noel, Countess of Rothes, heading for the opulence of first class, and Able Seaman Thomas Jones, destined for the more spartan quarters of the crew. In ordinary times, their paths would never have crossed. Yet, four nights later, when the supposedly “unsinkable” liner struck an iceberg and began its fatal plunge, they found themselves side-by-side in a lifeboat, battling the darkness to save themselves and 25 other souls.
The profound respect that bloomed in those harrowing hours never waned. For the remainder of their lives, the Countess and the able seaman maintained a correspondence, exchanging letters and thoughtful gifts. Noel frequently lauded Jones’s “noble” efforts amidst the panic and chaos of Lifeboat No. 8, recalling his “courage under so heartrending circumstances.”
Survivors of the Titanic disaster were often reticent to speak of the tragedy that claimed 1,496 lives. Many grappled with the shock, a trauma that would today be recognised as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Others, particularly as the looming shadow of the First World War, which erupted just two years after the sinking, cast its pall over Europe, found the sheer scale of the Titanic’s death toll dwarfed by the unfolding global conflict. Noel, whose birth on Christmas Day led to her being named Noel (though her given name was Lucy Noel Martha Leslie), was no exception. She would only occasionally remark, “Do remember that whatever you hear about the Titanic is not true.” What she might have made of James Cameron’s blockbuster 1997 film, in which she was portrayed by British actress Rochelle Rose, remains a tantalising mystery.
Following her passing in 1956, Noel’s son and granddaughter unearthed a box of her personal papers related to the Titanic, items previously unknown to them. Inside, they discovered newspaper clippings from 1912 and a copy of a sworn statement she had provided in Los Angeles mere weeks after the disaster. The collection also held poignant correspondence, including letters from the niece of the Spanish Prime Minister. This young woman, only 22 and on her honeymoon, was the youngest passenger in Lifeboat No. 8 and was forced to leave her husband behind on the doomed vessel, never to see him again. Alongside these were letters from Thomas Jones himself.
The New York Herald, reporting on the Titanic’s departure, had painted a picture of the Countess as “full of joyful expectation.” Her husband, Norman Evelyn Leslie, the 19th Earl of Rothes, had already travelled ahead, with plans to establish a fruit farm in California. In stark contrast to her portrayal in the film, where she is depicted as alarmed by the ship’s sudden stop, the real Countess barely registered the moment of impact. She recalled “a slight jar and then a grating noise” and noted the “sudden quiet” upon checking her watch, which read 11:46 pm.
Upon opening her cabin door, she was informed by a steward of the collision with ice. Driven by curiosity to see the iceberg, she and others ventured on deck, proceeding to the forward section. While the deck below was indeed covered in ice, the iceberg itself remained unseen. Crucially, “No one realised any danger.”
The order soon came to dress and don lifebelts. Noel, along with her ladies’ maid, poured a measure of brandy before hurrying to prepare. “Then no one seemed to know where the lifebelts were kept,” she recounted, “and a strange man found ours for us – we tied on his for him – and all shook hands and told each other that it would not be long before we met again.”
Able Seaman Thomas Jones, a diminutive Welshman standing just 5ft 1in tall, received an order from Captain Edward Smith to command Lifeboat No. 8. This was the fourth lifeboat to be launched, departing at 1 am. Despite its capacity for 65 passengers, it left with only 27 on board: 23 women, another able seaman named Charles Pascoe, and two stewards.
The stark reality of the Titanic’s sinking was that if all 16 lifeboats and four collapsible boats had been filled to capacity, an estimated 1,178 passengers and crew would have been saved. In the event, only 712 survived. When later questioned about why more people hadn’t come forward to board his lifeboat, Jones explained, “The night was so fine and the Titanic so large that they did not think it possible she could go down.” He recounted Captain Smith’s repeated appeals for people to board the lifeboats, appeals that went largely unheeded, resulting in many boats departing half-full.
A significant factor in the disparity of survival rates was the placement of the lifeboats. Even-numbered boats were stowed on the port side, while odd numbers were on the starboard. Fewer passengers disembarked from the port side, as the officer in charge there reportedly interpreted the directive “women and children first” as “women and children only.”
Roberta Maioni, Noel’s maid, recalled her own lack of fear, stating, “Everybody was saying as we left the ship that she was ‘good for 12 hours yet’.” With no more ladies ready to depart, Jones was ordered to “lower away.”
As Noel later recounted, the lifeboat was “lowered quietly to the water.” Once clear of the Titanic’s side, she offered her assistance to the seaman, asking, “if he would care to have me take the tiller, as I knew something about boats.” With no officer present to assume command, the responsibility fell solely on the young seaman. “He did it nobly, alternately cheering us with words of encouragement, then rowing doggedly,” Noel observed. Jones himself later told The Daily Telegraph, “There was a woman on my boat. When I saw the way she was carrying herself… I knew she was more of a man than any we had on board and I put her at the tiller.”
Captain Smith had instructed Jones to row towards the lights of a nearby vessel, intending to facilitate the transfer of passengers before returning. “I was sure,” Jones stated, “that the ship, whose lights we could plainly see, would pick us up and that our lifeboats would be able to do double duty in ferrying passengers to the help that gleamed so near.” These lights, however, belonged to the SS Californian, situated approximately 12 miles north-north-west of the Titanic, making it the closest ship by a considerable margin.
“For three hours,” Noel recalled, “we pulled steadily for the two masthead lights that showed brilliantly in the darkness.” She commended a fellow passenger, “Mrs Smith,” for her “sterling service” in rowing for five hours alongside Jones without a break. “Really, she was magnificent, not only in her attitude but in the whole-souled way in which she worked. Mrs Pearson also rowed, and my maid, Roberta Maioni, rowed the last half of the night.” Despite their strenuous efforts, the Californian remained elusive. “I pulled for the light,” Jones lamented, “and I found I could not get near the light.” Noel’s recollection mirrored his sentiment: “For a few minutes we saw the ship’s port light, then it vanished, and the masthead lights got dimmer on the horizon until they, too, disappeared.”
The heartbreaking reason they could not reach the Californian was a fatal error in judgment by its captain, Stanley Lord. His apprentice officer reported seeing white rockets being fired to the south and informed Captain Lord, who gave no specific instructions. Under the British Board of Trade’s rulebook, any doubt regarding a rocket’s purpose necessitated its interpretation as a distress signal. This critical rule was disregarded by the Californian’s captain. Compounding the tragedy, the ship’s Marconi wireless operator was off duty when the Titanic began sending SOS messages. The wireless room was closed from 11 pm to 8 am, a period allocated for the lone operator’s rest and meals.
Jones witnessed Noel’s efforts to comfort the women on board, at least four of whom had been compelled to leave their husbands behind. She offered reassurances that their men would find places in later lifeboats, tragically unaware of the insufficient number of available spaces. At 2:20 am, the Titanic sank, pitching those still aboard into the frigid water, their only protection the flimsy lifebelts.
In a letter to her parents, Noel expressed the profound horror: “The horror of it all can never be told… those fearful cries when she sank will never go out of my head.” As they had boarded Lifeboat No. 8, the newlywed husband of the young Spanish woman, Maria-Josefa, had implored Noel to look after her. “It was awful making her leave him, but one’s only feeling was to prevent any panic or scene and obey the Captain’s orders,” Noel recounted. Maria-Josefa’s subsequent screams for her husband were unbearable. “It was too horrible,” Noel recalled, “I slipped down beside her to be of what comfort I could. Poor woman! Her sobs tore our hearts out and her moans were unspeakable in their sadness.” The sight of “the rows of portholes vanishing one by one” was particularly distressing. The cold was intense, and the lifeboat was surrounded by icebergs, creating a constant fear of collision. “In this terrible blackness we rowed all night. Our hearts seemed chilled, but we hoped against hope that someone would pick us up.”
Both Jones and Noel harboured a strong desire to turn back and search for survivors in the water, as their lifeboat had ample space for more. However, “the other people in the boat were very strongly against it,” Noel recalled, citing fears of being swamped by the suction wave from the sinking Titanic. She recounted a conversation with another passenger who urged her not to voice her desire to return, fearing it might cause panic.
Another significant fear was that desperate individuals in the water, struggling to board, would capsize the lifeboat, dooming all 27 on board. This dilemma weighed heavily on both the Countess and Jones. In a later letter to Jones, Noel wrote, “The dreadful regret I shall always have, and I know you share with me, is that we ought to have gone back to see whom we could pick up.”
When the harrowing sounds of dying individuals finally ceased, the ensuing absolute silence was even more profound. To distract those in the boat, someone suggested they sing. They sang through the remainder of the night, their repertoire encompassing ballads, nursery rhymes, folk songs, and hymns – any tune they could recall. “It kept up our spirits,” Jones remembered. “We sang as we rowed, starting out with ‘Pull For The Shore’.”
The RMS Carpathia, en route from New York to Gibraltar, was approximately 58 miles away when its captain, Arthur Rostron, received the Titanic’s distress message. She arrived at the scene at 4 am, an hour and 40 minutes after the Titanic had sunk, tragically too late to rescue anyone not already in a lifeboat. Noel fainted upon being taken aboard the Carpathia. “I remember nothing after I was put into the swing and hauled up until I found myself on the dining-room sofa with the doctor pouring hot stuff down my throat,” she recalled.
Noel and Jones continued to exchange Christmas cards annually until Noel’s death. Among the cherished artefacts discovered in her Titanic box was a wooden roundel featuring a bronze number “8” embedded in its centre. This was a gift from Jones, who had removed the numeral from the prow of Lifeboat No. 8 and mounted it on wood. “My lady,” he wrote in his accompanying letter, “I beg to ask your acceptance of the number of my boat from which you were taken on board S/S Carpathia. In asking you to accept the same, I do so in respect of your courage under so terrifying circumstances.” In return, she gifted him a silver fob watch, engraved with the simple inscription: “April 15th 1912. From the Countess of Rothes.”
Each Christmas, Noel would enclose £1 with her letter. According to her family, this sum, equivalent to approximately £400 today, was substantial enough to “do Christmas” and cover all expenses. Nell, Jones’s daughter, fondly recalled her father reading the letters he exchanged with Noel to her. When she proudly told her schoolmates that her father corresponded with a Countess, they were disbelieving. With a smile, she admitted that as a child, she had assumed “everybody knew a Countess.”
For Noel, a particular piece of music would forever echo the tragedy: the Barcarolle from “The Tales of Hoffmann.” It was the final piece she heard the orchestra play on deck before retiring to her cabin on the night the ship went down.
