Malvina Helen Cornell - Titanic First Class Passenger
Malvina Helen Cornell was a first class passenger sailing home to New York aboard Titanic with her sisters Charlotte Appleton and Caroline Brown. The sisters had been in Europe due to the ill health and then death of their sister Lady Elizabeth Drummond. Aboard Titanic the three sisters shared cabin C101, and had boarded the ship at Southampton on 10th April 1912.
Malvina Cornell (née Lamson), the daughter of Charles and Elizabeth Lamson, was born on 22nd August 1856 (note: other sources give her date of her birth as 10th or 12th December 1856). She married Robert Clifford Cornell, who was employed in the legal profession. At the time of the Titanic disaster they were living in New York City.
In the spring of 1912, Malvina Cornell’s sister Lady Elizabeth Drummond was very ill and so Malvina Cornell sailed to Europe, but was still at sea when Lady Elizabeth Drummond died in Paris on 25th March 1912. Her sisters Charlotte Appleton and Caroline Brown had already sailed to Europe, and along with another sister, Kathrine de Florez, were with Lady Elizabeth Drummond when she died.
After Lady Elizabeth Drummond’s funeral which took place in Britain, Malvina Cornell, Charlotte Appleton and Caroline Brown boarded Titanic to make their way home to America. At Cherbourg, France, they were joined aboard Titanic by 36 year old Edith Evans, a niece of Malvina Cornell’s husband. The husband of a friend of the sisters, first class passenger Colonel Archibald Gracie, offered to take care of them aboard Titanic .
As Titanic was sinking, Malvina Cornell and her travelling companions were escorted to the lifeboats by Colonel Archibald Gracie, who, with it being women and children only, left them with the crew. Despite this, they were all still aboard Titanic 2 hours after the collision with the iceberg.
Malvina Cornell and Charlotte Appleton found their way aboard Lifeboat 2, amongst the last to leave the ship, being lowered away at around 1.45am. With Titanic approaching her end, Colonel Archibald Gracie discovered Caroline Brown and Edith Evans still aboard the ship and escorted them to Lifeboat D, the last lifeboat to actually be lowered away from the ship. Caroline Brown boarded the lifeboat; for some reason, Edith Evans did not.
Malvina Cornell and her two sisters survived the disaster. Edith Evans was lost. Colonel Archibald Gracie, having been forced into the water as the deck sank beneath him, had survived the disaster by managing to get on top of the upside down Lifeboat B, which floated off the ship as it was sinking.
Lifeboat 2, with Malvina Cornell and Charlotte Appleton aboard, was the first to be rescued by Carpathia. When aboard the rescue ship they waited for the other boats to arrive and met up with their uncle Charles Marshall and his wife Josephine and their daughter Evelyn, whom they knew were aboard Carpathia, and had even communicated with through wireless message from Titanic.
Malvina Cornell died in Manhattan, New York on 12th July 1941. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. Her husband had died on 7th November 1918.
Related pages - Titanic's First Class Passengers, All Titanic Pages