Robert Williams Daniel
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Robert Williams Daniel (September 11, 1884 – December 20, 1940) was an American banker who survived the sinking of the RMS ''Titanic'' in 1912, and later became a gentleman farmer and served in the Virginia Senate.


Early and family life

Daniel was born on September 11, 1884, in
Richmond, Virginia Richmond ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), U.S. commonwealth of Virginia. Incorporated in 1742, Richmond has been an independent city (United States), independent city since 1871. ...
, the son of James Robertson Vivian Daniel, a Richmond lawyer, and Hallie Wise Daniel (née Williams). Daniel was educated in the local schools and graduated from the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
in 1903. He married fellow ''Titanic'' survivor Eloise Hughes Smith in 1914, but divorced in 1923. On December 6, 1923, Daniel married Margery Durant, daughter of automobile executive William C. Durant, and they had one daughter, Margery Randolph Daniel (November 2, 1924 – May 23, 2013). They too divorced and Daniel married Charlotte Bemiss Christian, a widow, who survived him. They had one son, Robert Williams Daniel, Jr. (March 17, 1936 – February 4, 2012). A descendant of
William Randolph William Randolph I (bapt. 7 November 1650 – 21 April 1711) was an English-born planter, merchant and politician in Colony of Virginia, colonial Virginia who played an important role in the development of the colony. Born in Moreton Morrell, W ...
, his great-grandfather Peter V. Daniel, was an
Associate Justice An associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some ...
of the
United States Supreme Court The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that turn on question ...
, his great-great-grandfather
Edmund Randolph Edmund Jennings Randolph (August 10, 1753 September 12, 1813) was a Founding Father of the United States, attorney, and the seventh Governor of Virginia. As a delegate from Virginia, he attended the Constitutional Convention and helped to cre ...
, was the seventh
Governor of Virginia The governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia is the head of government of the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia. The Governor (United States), governor is head of the Government_of_Virginia#Executive_branch, executive branch ...
, the first
Attorney General of the United States The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The attorney general acts as the principal legal advisor to the president of the ...
and later served as Secretary of State.


Career

After graduating from the
University of Virginia The University of Virginia (UVA) is a Public university#United States, public research university in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson and contains his The Lawn, Academical Village, a World H ...
, Daniel embarked on a career in banking and management. His first job was in the traffic manager's office of the
Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad The Richmond, Fredericksburg, and Potomac Railroad was a railroad connecting Richmond, Virginia, to Washington, D.C. The track is now the RF&P Subdivision of the CSX Transportation system; the original corporation is no longer a railroad co ...
. His grandfather, Peter V. Daniel, Jr., had been president of the railroad from 1860 to 1871. About 1905, Daniel left RF&P and entered the insurance business, becoming attached to the firm of Williams and Hart. He eventually succeeded Williams as district superintendent for the Maryland Life Insurance Company. In 1906, Daniel and a fellow district manager of Maryland Life, Charles Palmer Stearns, formed the insurance firm Daniel and Stearns. By 1911, Daniel was employed as a banker and living in Philadelphia where he was on the board of the banking and brokerage firm of Shillard-Smith, Daniel & Co. The firm had an office in London and business travel sometimes took him to Europe. In late 1911 while staying at the Carlton Hotel in London, the building caught fire and Daniel managed to save the life of a friend who was also staying at the hotel.


Survivor of the RMS Titanic

Daniel boarded the RMS ''Titanic'' in Southampton as a first-class passenger for what would be his fifth transatlantic crossing on the morning of 10 April 1912 to return to Philadelphia from a business trip to London. He paid £30 10s (approximately USD$3,855 in 2020) for his ticket and was assigned one of the first-class staterooms at the forward end of ''Titanic's'' A-Deck. The number of the cabin Daniel occupied during the voyage is not known although he said he had an inside cabin. Titanic survivor Edith Rosenbaum who occupied stateroom A-11 was acquainted with Daniel, having met him previously in
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. She said that Daniel's stateroom was "around the corner" from hers. He brought along his champion French bulldog, named Gamin de Pycombe, which he had recently purchased for £150 (the equivalent of about $18,960 in 2020). Later that evening when the ship stopped in
Cherbourg Cherbourg is a former Communes of France, commune and Subprefectures in France, subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French departments of France, department of Manche. It was merged into the com ...
, Daniel sent a brief three-word telegram to his mother in Richmond to let her know he was "on board ''Titanic''." His dog died in the sinking. Daniel survived the tragedy, though the exact manner of his escape from ''Titanic'' remains a mystery, and there is confusion over what lifeboat Daniel was rescued in. Press reports varied; at least one account claimed that he swam completely nude in the frigid North Atlantic for a number of hours before being hauled aboard a lifeboat barely conscious. It is much more plausible, given the below freezing water temperature, that Daniel simply climbed into one of the early lifeboats being launched from the
starboard Port and starboard are Glossary of nautical terms (M-Z), nautical terms for watercraft and spacecraft, referring respectively to the left and right sides of the vessel, when aboard and facing the Bow (watercraft), bow (front). Vessels with bil ...
side of the stricken liner. At that point, few passengers thought the ship would actually sink and many were reluctant to board the lifeboats. As a result, seats in the lifeboats found few takers, and some left the ship less than half full. Some men were allowed into lifeboats filled with women and children, ostensibly to man the oars. Daniel himself never said which lifeboat he was rescued in, if he even knew. It may be that he was in more than one lifeboat between the time the ship sank and the arrival of the '' Carpathia'', which could account for the confusion. It is possible that Daniel jumped from the sinking ship and found refuge on one of the collapsible lifeboats and was later transferred into another lifeboat such as lifeboat 4, which rescued five survivors directly from the sea after the sinking. When lifeboat 4 was lowered from ''Titanic'', it had approximately 30 people aboard; by the end of the night, however, it had perhaps around 60 people aboard, most of whom were transferred into it from other boats. ''The Sinking of the Titanic'' quotes Charles Lightoller, who survived by clinging to overturned collapsible lifeboat B, as saying that after the sinking Daniel was rescued from the water by "a passing lifeboat". According to Daniel's family lore, he was rescued by the "Unsinkable Molly Brown" (activist and philanthropist Margaret Tobin Brown of Denver) in Lifeboat 6, but there is no record of him being in that boat. A news article published in 1915 stated that Daniel was picked up by the lifeboat containing the woman who is now his wife. Mrs. Smith, whom he later married, is known to have been rescued in lifeboat 6. While aboard the rescue ship, RMS ''Carpathia'', Daniel met a fellow ''Titanic'' survivor, Eloise Hughes Smith, daughter of U.S. Representative James A. Hughes, whose husband, Lucian P. Smith, had died during the disaster. Daniel and Mrs. Smith were wed in a quiet ceremony in New York City in August 1914, but Daniel soon left for London on business and became stranded in England for two months when
World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
broke out in Europe. Upon his return, they settled in a stately home in Philadelphia's fashionable Rosemont neighborhood, and Daniel became
stepfather A stepfather or stepdad is a biologically unrelated male parent married to one's preexisting parent. A stepfather-in-law is a stepfather of one's spouse. Children from his spouse's previous unions are known as his stepchildren. In fiction Thou ...
to her son Lucian Jr., who was born eight months after the sinking. After
American entry into World War I The United States entered into World War I on 6 April 1917, more than two and a half years after the war began in Europe. Apart from an Anglophile element urging early support for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, British and an a ...
, Daniel received an officer's commission in the U.S. Army and was sent to France. He rose to the rank of
Major Major most commonly refers to: * Major (rank), a military rank * Academic major, an academic discipline to which an undergraduate student formally commits * People named Major, including given names, surnames, nicknames * Major and minor in musi ...
. Daniel returned home from Europe aboard the Cunard liner ''
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'' then serving as a troopship to transport American soldiers home from the war. By the time the war ended, the couple had separated. After the sinking Daniel submitted a claim to White Star for an estimated $4,583.25 in personal effects that he lost aboard the Titanic including 15 Meerschaum pipes that he’d purchased as gifts for friends and one champion French bulldog named Gamin de Pycombe. In contrast to his willingness to speak to reporters immediately after the sinking in 1912, in later years Daniel refused to talk about the ''Titanic'' disaster. This could have been due to the traumatic nature of the event, or the stigma that many surviving male passengers felt as survivors of a tragedy that had claimed the lives of so many women and children. It is also possible that the fantastic account of his survival that he gave reporters as a young man was a
tall tale A tall tale is a story with unbelievable elements, related as if it were true and factual. Some tall tales are exaggerations of actual events, for example fish stories ("the fish that got away") such as, "That fish was so big, why I tell ya', it ...
and that Daniel, by then a prominent Virginia politician, did not want to answer questions. In a 1993 article by Daniel's granddaughter, she said that "he never talked about the Titanic disaster because, after all, he was a man, 28 years old, a very athletic and healthy man who survived, and the whole thing about women and children first was a stigma. So he never talked about it."


Bank executive, gentleman farmer and subsequent marriages

Daniel was later named vice president of Liberty National Bank in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
and later became president and chairman of the board. After learning that Daniel was spending time with another woman in New York, his estranged wife, Eloise, asked for and was granted a divorce from him in March 1923, citing an "unknown blonde woman" in her claim. On December 6, 1923, Daniel married Mrs. Edwin Rutheven Campbell (née ''Margery Pitt Durant''; 1887-1969), daughter of William C. Durant, an automobile manufacturer who founded
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, in the Halsey Street Methodist Episcopal Church in
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. This marriage produced one daughter, Margery Randolph Daniel (November 2, 1924 – May 23, 2013). The Daniels purchased Brandon, one of the James River Plantations in Prince George County, Virginia, in 1926, and restored the 18th century mansion. The couple divorced in September 1928, but Daniel kept the historic estate where he operated a dairy farm, maintained a stable of horses, and enjoyed hunting and shooting. Daniel ascribed his second divorce to a charm which he had unintentionally broken at the old estate. According to a Harrison family legend, a bride of long ago who was married beneath the chandelier in the stately main room of the mansion died on her wedding night. Her wedding ring was embedded in the plaster ceiling and the legend was created that whoever disturbed it would meet with bad luck in love. After purchasing Brandon in 1926, Daniel ordered renovations made to the dilapidated 160-year-old mansion. While workmen were repairing the ceiling a piece of plaster fell to the floor containing a wedding ring. The workmen took it to Daniel, who had it cleaned and polished and placed back beneath the chandelier. He said he was aware of the legend and feared the results of disturbing the ring. Two years later Margery sued for divorce. On October 10, 1929, Daniel married, for the third and final time, his distant cousin, Mrs. Frank Palmer Christian (née ''Charlotte Randolph Bemiss''; 1890-1968) of Richmond, Virginia. At this time Daniel was president of Liberty National Bank in New York City. Mrs. Christian's first husband had died in 1918 during military service. Later, Daniel became chairman of the board of the Richmond Trust Company headquartered at 627 E. Main Street in Richmond. Their son, Robert Williams Daniel, Jr. was born in Richmond in March 1936. Daniel was a longtime
parishioner A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or ...
of the Martin's Brandon Episcopal Church and donated several stained glass windows by Tiffany. He reputedly asked the church
vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...
to never play the hymn " Nearer, My God, to Thee" during services. The hymn is often cited as the last song played by the ''Titanics band as the ship sank.


Political career

In 1935, Daniel was elected to the Senate of Virginia representing the 6th District, a part-time position. Daniel, a Conservative Democrat, was a political ally of Harry Flood Byrd and a close friend of his brother
Rear Admiral Rear admiral is a flag officer rank used by English-speaking navies. In most European navies, the equivalent rank is called counter admiral. Rear admiral is usually immediately senior to commodore and immediately below vice admiral. It is ...
Richard E. Byrd. He held the seat until his death. Daniel served on the Governor's Advisory Board on the Budget and for ten years (appointed by three governors, Pollard, Peery and
Price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...
) and served on the State Board of Education until he resigned in 1937 to run for
lieutenant governor A lieutenant governor, lieutenant-governor, or vice governor is a high officer of state, whose precise role and rank vary by jurisdiction. Often a lieutenant governor is the deputy, or lieutenant, to or ranked under a governor — a "second-in-comm ...
. He later (in 1939) was appointed to the University of Virginia's Board of Visitors by Governor Price.


Death and burial

The Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Panic of 1930 led to numerous bank failures in the U.S. and the Richmond Trust Company closed in 1931 during the
Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...
and Daniel retired to his estate, Brandon, and became a gentleman farmer and entered Virginia politics. Although successful professionally and politically Daniel privately struggled with
alcoholism Alcoholism is the continued drinking of alcohol despite it causing problems. Some definitions require evidence of dependence and withdrawal. Problematic use of alcohol has been mentioned in the earliest historical records. The World He ...
, failed marriages, post-traumatic stress and the stigma associated with having survived the ''Titanic'' disaster for much of his life. He died of cirrhosis of the liver on December 20, 1940, in Richmond and was interred in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond. Daniel's first wife and fellow ''Titanic'' Survivor, Eloise Smith, had died earlier the same year at the age of 46 in a sanitarium in Cincinnati. Daniel's son and namesake would later serve five terms in the
United States Congress The United States Congress is the legislature, legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is a Bicameralism, bicameral legislature, including a Lower house, lower body, the United States House of Representatives, ...
.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Robert Williams 1884 births 1940 deaths Burials at Hollywood Cemetery (Richmond, Virginia) Democratic Party Virginia state senators Politicians from Richmond, Virginia RMS Titanic survivors American bankers Randolph family (Virginia) 20th-century American farmers 20th-century members of the Virginia General Assembly