Robert Williams Daniel was born 11 September 1884 in Richmond, Virginia to James Robertson Vivian and Hallie Wise Daniel (née Williams). Robert was the great-grand-grandson of Edward Randolph, the first Attorney General of the United States.
Robert graduated from the University of Virginia in Charlottesville in 1903 and embarked on a career in banking and management. He was first employed in the traffic manager’s office of the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad. He then entered the insurance business around 1905, becoming attached to the firm of Williams and Hart. He would eventually succeed Mr. Williams as district superintendent for the Maryland Life Insurance Company.
In 1906, Robert and a fellow district manager of Maryland Life, Charles Palmer Stearns, formed the insurance firm Daniel and Stearns.
By 1911, Robert Daniel was working as a banker and living in Philadelphia. Business would sometimes cause him to go to Europe. In late 1911 or early 1912, while he was staying at the Carlton Hotel in London, the building caught fire. Robert managed to save the life of a friend who was also staying there.
Robert was en route back to Philadelphia with a newly-purchased French bulldog when he boarded the Titanic in Southampton as a first-class passenger on the morning of 10 April 1912. He survived the tragedy which followed, though the precise manner of his escape remains a controversial matter. Descriptions varied in the press that followed; in at least one account it was claimed he swam completely nude in the North Atlantic for a number of hours before being picked up by a lifeboat. It is possible – and much more plausible – that he simply boarded one of the early lifeboats launched from the starboard side of the stricken liner. His new dog was lost in the sinking.
Robert Daniel, a Philadelphia passenger, told of terrible scenes at this period of the disaster. He said men fought and bit and struck one another like madmen, and exhibited wounds upon his face to prove the assertion. Mr Daniel said that he was picked up naked from the ice-cold water and almost perished from exposure before he was rescued. He and others told how the Titanic's bow was completely torn away by the impact with the berg.
"George D. Widener and Harry Elkins Widener were among those who jumped at the last minute. So did Robert Williams Daniel. The three of them went down together. Daniel struck out, lashing the water with his arms until he had made a point far distant from the sinking monster of the sea. Later he was picked up by one of the passing life-boats.
Sometime during the remainder of the crossing spent aboard the rescue-ship Carpathia, Robert befriended the eighteen-year-old widow Eloise Hughes Smith of Huntington, West Virginia, whose husband of two months had died in the sinking. At Pier 54 in New York, he reportedly carried the young widow down the gangway and handed her over to her father, Congressman James Anthony Hughes.
Robert and Eloise would continue to meet on occasion. The two Titanic survivors would ultimately marry on 18 August 1914. Eloise asked for and was granted a divorce from him in March 1923, citing an “unknown blonde woman” in her claim.
Robert Daniel would go on to marry Margery Pitt Durant later that same year. Margery was the daughter of automobile king William Durant, who formed General Motors in 1908, created Chevrolet in 1910, and founded the Durant Car Company in 1921. Robert became president of Liberty National Bank in New York, which was also owned by his father-in-law. A daughter, also named Margery, was born to the couple around 1925.
Robert and Margery purchased the plantation home Brandon-on-the-James, located along the banks of the James River in Virginia. The history of the plantation dates back to 1616. The main house was reportedly designed by Thomas Jefferson.
The marriage eventually deteriorated, and in July 1928, Margery sued for divorce. The business relationship between Robert and his former father-in-law carried on as usual, with Robert remaining president of the New York branch of Liberty National Bank.
Robert would go on to marry Charlotte Randolph Williams Bemiss in 1929. She bore him a son, Robert Williams Daniel Jr., on 17 March 1936.
Robert Williams Daniel Sr. would not live to see his son become a successful and well-respected politician. He succumbed to cirrhosis of the liver on the 20 December 1940. His first wife, fellow Titanic survivor Eloise Hughes Smith, had preceded him in death that May. He was interred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond.
Robert Williams Daniel Jr. would go on to graduate from the University of Virginia in 1958. He worked for a time as a financial analyst, later teaching Economics at the University of Richmond. He also spent four years working for the Central Intelligence Agency. Robert Jr. would go on to serve five terms in Congress representing Virginia’s Fourth Congressional District. He died 4 February 2012 at the age of seventy-five. He too was laid to rest in Hollywood Cemetery.
Crypt of Robert Williams Daniel in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, Virginia.
(Courtesy of Brandon Whited)
Comment and discuss
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Does anyone know the real story of what happened to first-class passenger Robert Williams Daniel during the sinking? He talked to the press a great deal after the disaster, and he spun a fantastic tale that is, quite frankly, full of holes. I've been working from the New York Times and Washington Times articles on this site, as well as records from the Virginia Historical Society: To the New York Times, he says that he stayed aboard until "all the boats had gone," and begged Mr....
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Robert Daniel has been the most difficult to me in terms of lifeboat placement in my research. Apart from what you said, he also gave other accounts. In two, he claims to have been on the overturned boat with Jack Thayer, and that they were rescued by 2 lifeboats at dawn. In one, he claims to have been picked up clinging to a chunk of ice by a boat which had come back to search for survivors, and which was in command of an officer who earlier during the sinking he had seen firing warning shots at a group of men who tried to board the boat, before stepping into the boat himself. The latter account would seem to imply he was one of the 3 men picked up by Lifeboat 14 (Officer Lowe did fire warning shots at a crowd of men who tried to jump on the boat while it was being lowered). On the other hand, the former two accounts, as well as the third account you provided (thanks), indicate he was on Collapsible B. There is another possibility, then. Officer Lightoller is said by Colonel Gracie...
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The one problem with Williams account is he wrote about the dog later in life... The shock of being in the water and the pitch black dark... He may have seen a dog, but with what the cold did to his brain, it's hard to describe an actual dog... Or Daniel may have brought him on deck before he got in boat 3. He may have seen that there was no letting a decent size dog in and chose his life.
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I see several more problems. Jack Thayer never mentioned him in his 1912 report and as far as I know he also did not mentioned him in the 1940s. (Interesting how the conclusion was made he was referring to Daniel even it does not really match.) Dillon is another problem. If he really saw him why no mention in his 1912 reports or even 1912 BOT testimony? In complete dark at the poop he was able to make out Daniel? Very strange... Remembers me somehow to the reports of steward Whiteley who gave three different reports to the press about the events of the sinking.
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The mention of Daniel by Jack Thayer comes from his 1940 memoirs "Sinking of the SS Titanic." While he and Milton Long are waiting by Collapsible C, Thayer describes: "I did see one man come through the door out onto the deck with a full bottle of Gordon Gin. He put it to his mouth and practically drained it. If ever I get out of this alive, I thought, there is one man I will never see again. He apparently fought his way into one of the last two boats, for he was one of the first men I recognized upon reaching the deck of the S.S. "Carpathia." Someone told me afterwards that he was a State Senator or Congressman from Virginia or West Virginia." Thayer does not specifically mention Daniel by name. However, Daniel was a State Senator of Virginia in later life. I'm not aware of any other Titanic survivor who was a State senator from Virginia. It seems clear to me that Thayer is referring to Daniel, whether or not his memory of events is reliable is open-ended, I suppose. The wording...
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Also, Thayer doesn't give the time frame of seeing Mr. Daniels... If he had said, "all the boats are gone and as I looked around I saw a man drain a bottle of gin." But he worded it in a way that it seems like an after thought.
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John The problem I have with the dogs is that Daniel said he went below to release them. While I think we can be fairly confident that the kennels were indeed located below on F Deck, I can account for most of the known dogs actually staying in the staterooms with their owners — including Astor's airedale and Daniel’s own bulldog. As far as I can tell, the only animal occupants of the kennels were Marie Young’s prized chickens! I don’t have Rosenbaum’s accounts with me, but from memory, she merely mentioned seeing the dog while visiting Daniel in his stateroom, apparently somewhere ‘around the corner’ from her own (on A Deck). I can’t recall whether this was at some point before or immediately after the collision. Either way, this allows plenty of time for Daniel to leave the cabin with his dog or go back to at least release it and take it to the Boat Deck. So I’d say there is no need to doubt Rosenbaum’s account, at the very least, she confirms that he...
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