The last living survivor of the Titanic, Millvina Dean, has died at the age of 97 in Southampton after catching pneumonia.
As a two-month-old baby, Dean was the youngest passenger on board the giant liner when it sank on its maiden voyage with the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
Her parents had decided to leave England for America, where her father had family in Kansas and hoped to open a tobacco shop.
The Deans had not chosen to be aboard the Titanic, but because of a coal strike they were transferred to the ship and boarded it as third-class passengers at Southampton.
Her father felt the crunch of the ship’s collision with the iceberg on the night of 14 April 1912, and went up to investigate. He returned to their cabin telling his wife to dress the children and go up on deck.
Dean, her mother, and brother were placed in lifeboat 10 and were among the first off the liner out of the 706 passengers and crew who escaped.
Her father, however, remained aboard and was among those who drowned when the giant ship finally went down in the early hours of next day.
