Miss Hilda Mary Slayter

Miss Hilda Slayter was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, 5 April 1882, the daughter of a doctor. Hilda left home in 1902 to study music in Italy. She had dreams of becoming a professional singer, but her ambition exceeded her talent. Her older brother was an officer aboard the royal yacht, Victoria and Albert, and helped to support her.

By the time she was 27, she realized her career was going nowhere, her brother no longer wished to subsidize her studies, and she was unmarried. She met Harry Reginald Dunbar Lacon of Ottley, the son of a British MP and baron, Sir Edmund Henry Knowles Lacon of Ottley. Harry, who was living on Denman Island off the coast of British Columbia, proposed, and Hilda accepted. She was in England shopping for her trousseau, and booked passage home aboard Titanic (Ticket No. 234818, £12 7s). She boarded the Titanic at Queenstown as a second class passenger, she shared a cabin with Florence Kelly. In her trunks were "one satin opal and pearl wedding dress with silver opal and mesh scarf, satin slippers, silk stockings and a hair bandeau," worth $4,000. There was also a "blue satin silver net dress, silver and blue scarf, silver tissue and osprey and Italian embroidered lace hand made blouses" worth another $3,000.

Hilda survived the sinking, probably in lifeboat 13, but she lost lost all of her luggage including the trousseau.

She married Lacon on Denman Island on 1 June 1912. Their son, Reginald William Beecroft Lacon distinguished himself in the Royal Canadian Navy during World War II He later lived in Norris Castle, East Cowes, Isle Of Wight, Hampshire and it was here that Hilda Mary Lacon (née Slayter) died on 12 April 1965. Her body was returned to the Slayter family plot in Camp Hill cemetery, Halifax, Nova Scotia for burial.