Emily Maria Ryerson, her husband Arthur and their children, Suzette, Emily and John, boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg in France bound for their home in Pennsylvania, USA. Emily and the children escaped in a lifeboat, despite her attempts to stay with Arthur, and her 13-year-old son initially being refused a place in the escape vessel.

Emily gave testimony at the 1912 US Senate hearing and described the awful moment when the Titanic "seemed to break in half as if cut with a knife". Arthur never made it to safety and died at the scene, while the survivors in the lifeboat were picked up by the Carpathia and taken to New York.

Three years later, Emily commissioned the design of a lavish mansion in Chicago as a fresh start for the grief-stricken family.

The stately homes of the Titanic's richest passengers