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.
[2] 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.
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 side of the stricken liner.
Upon his return, they settled in a stately home in Philadelphia's fashionable Rosemont neighborhood, and Daniel became stepfather to her son Lucian Jr., who was born eight months after the sinking.
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 and that Daniel, by then a prominent Virginia politician, did not want to answer questions.
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.
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.
[22] 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.
Daniel was a longtime parishioner of the Martin's Brandon Episcopal Church and donated several stained glass windows by Tiffany.
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 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, failed marriages, post-traumatic stress and the stigma associated with having survived the Titanic disaster for much of his life.
[23][24] 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.