Colonel John Jacob Astor IV – Top Bloke

Yet another toff who died on the Titanic in an age when, if a sailor told you not to get in a lifeboat because not all the women were boarded yet, then you didn’t.

John Jacob Astor IV was of the famous New York Astor family, another family like the Guggenheims, who never had to worry about counting their money, for there was always more money there every time you dipped your hand in your wallet, money on demand, cash money without question – must be nice eh ?

John Jacob Astor was a mechanical genius, invented the bicycle brake, top bloke, and had a hand inventing a turbine engine, but his main skill was in managing the family fortune, and also spending it.

In 1897 he built The New York Astoria Hotel right next door to his cousins Waldorf Hotel, just because he could, top bloke. He became a Colonel in the US Army in 1898 and during the Spanish-American war that year he placed his personal yacht at the disposal of the Army sailing off to war in it himself, no doubt tax-deductible – I like the idea of a toff deciding not to travel with the army, “I’ll make my own way there if you don’t mind…”, top bloke

Married in 1891 he divorced in 1909 and instead, at the age of 45 married some eighteen year old totty, Madeleine, who at the time was one year younger than his own son, top bloke again – unfortunately the society scandal meant that the honeymooners had to flee the country until the shock died down, and so they travelled far and wide to Egypt and Paris, and when discovering that she was pregnant deciding to sail home on the maiden transatlantic voyage of RMS Titanic.

Being the richest man on the Titanic (his grandfather was the fourth richest man in America – ever) he bought First Class tickets for himself and his very young wife, his manservant, his wife’s maid, his wife’s private nurse and their dog Kitty, £224. 10s 6d it cost him and they occupied three cabins.

After the iceberg was struck Astor ridiculed the idea that they should be bundled into the lifeboats stating that “we are safer here than in that little boat”, top man, but later changed his mind as the ship sunk lower and after helping his wife into one of the lifeboats asked Second Officer Lightoller if he could join her as she was “In a delicate state”, Lightoller reminded him that no Gentleman would be allowed to board a lifeboat until all the Ladies were safely away, the top man that he was, Astor simply stepped away, lit a cigarette, tossed his gloves to his wife, and waited.

His body was found the next day covered in soot and blood, the board of enquiry drew the conclusion that he had died when the first of the Titanic’s chimney stacks fell on him, a tad unfortunate one might say. The body was recovered from the sea complete with “…gold watch, gold cufflinks with diamonds, diamond ring with three stones, £225 in English currency, $2440 in American, 50 francs, a gold pencil and a pocketbook”, they identified him from his monogrammed belt buckle and monogrammed shirt collar, top bloke, I once knew a toff who had all his shirts monogrammed too, he was a top bloke as well.

His young totty Madeleine survived in lifeboat number 4 and gave birth to a boy in August of that year and inherited the income from a five million dollar trust fund together with houses in New York and the Newports on the sole proviso that she did not marry again.

Four years later the silly cow married and relinquished all claim to the Astor fortune, divorcing in 1933 to marry a prize fighter, Enzo Fiermonte, she died in 1940 at the age of 47, her son to John Astor IV, also called John Astor (but number VI), a lad who must surely have cursed her lack of fidelity to his fathers memory but more particularly to his fathers fortune for the rest of his life, died in 1992 at the age of 79, possibly the youngest survivor of the Titanic disaster at the age of minus four months.