Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes

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Lucy Noël Martha Leslie, Countess of Rothes (25 December 188412 September 1956) was the wife of the 19th Earl of Rothes, whom she married on 19 April 1900. She was the only child of Thomas and Clementina Dyer-Edwardes.

Lord and Lady Rothes had two children:

  • Malcolm George Dyer-Edwardes Leslie, Lord Leslie (later 20th Earl of Rothes) (19021975), married Beryl Violet Dugdale, daughter of Captain James Lionel Dugdale and Maud Violet Woodroffe, on July 17, 1926 and had issue.
  • The Hon. John Wayland Leslie (19091991)

Lady Rothes is best known as having been a first-class passenger aboard the RMS Titanic. She embarked at Southampton with her parents, Thomas and Clementina Dyer-Edwardes, cousin Gladys Cherry, and maid Roberta Maioni. Her parents disembarked at Cherbourg, while the others continued, destined for Vancouver, British Columbia. Lady Rothes and miss Cherry were primaly booked in the first class basic cabin C37 but it is possible they moved in one of the period suite C77.

Lady Rothes, her cousin, and the maid were rescued in lifeboat 8. Able Seaman Thomas William Jones, who was in charge of the lifeboat, later said that "she had a lot to say, so I put her to steering the boat", meaning this respectfully. She took the tiller until their lifeboat was picked up by the RMS Carpathia, displaying bravery and great care for the other ladies. As a token of his esteem Jones later presented her with the brass number plate from their lifeboat. She wrote to him every Christmas, and the two maintained a regular correspondence until her death.

After her husband died in March 1927, Lady Rothes remarried on 22 December 1927, to Colonel Claud Macfie, DSO, in London. They had no children. She died in Hove, Sussex, on 12 September 1956.

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