The Montreal Gazette recently published an unusual Remembrance Day story from journalism professor Randy Boswell, who told the tale of a Canadian-owned, diamond-studded tiara that survived the sinking of the RMS Lusitania 100 years ago, during the First World War.
Once owned by Marguerite Allan, the Montreal arts patron and wife of businessman-philanthropist Sir Montagu Allan, the tiara and Lady Allan were rescued, but the couple’s two daughters, Gwen and Anna, perished in the infamous 1915 sinking of the ship by a German U-boat. Lady Allan had been on her way to England to establish a convalescent hospital for Canadians wounded in the war, a mission she carried out even after the Lusitania tragedy.
The tiara, bequeathed to a relative in the 1950s, sold for $1 million at an auction in Switzerland on Nov. 11.
Friday, November 20, 2015 in Journalism News, News
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