Gladys Cherry

Major highlights

Gladys Cherry was born in Greenwich, England, as the third and last child of J. F. Cherry and his wife, Lady Emily Cherry (nee Haworth), the daughter of Mary Elizabeth, 18th Countess of Rothes. Gladys' father died three years after her birth.

In 1912, Gladys travelled with her cousin's wife, Lucy Noel Martha, Countess of Rothes and the Countess' maid, Miss Roberta "Cissy" Maioni, to the United States via the RMS Titanic. Gladys and Noel occupied stateroom B-77.

On the night that the Titanic sank, Gladys retired at ten o'clock. She had been sound asleep until Noel roused her and both began to wonder at the "strange quiet." Realising the engines had stopped; they sought a steward, who informed them the ship had stopped due to icebergs. Excited by the news, the two women rushed up to the boat deck, where they witnessed third class passengers playing with large chunks of ice at the bow of the ship.

Captain Edward J. Smith advised the women (along with a group of other first cabin passengers) to dress warmly, put on their lifebelts, and return to the boat deck immediately. After so doing, the women entered lifeboat No. 8. Throughout the night in the lifeboat, Gladys recalled being "numb from the waist downwards," and that the clothes she had worn had been ruined while in the lifeboat. She remained at the tiller all night, while Noel stayed beside a 22-year-old Spanish newlywed, Senora Maria Penasco y Castellana, who had been screaming for her husband, Victor.

Gladys arrived in New York safely, and there met her brother, Charlie. Eventually she returned to the United Kingdom and resumed life at a normal pace. Gladys married retired army officer George Octavius Shaw Pringle in the 1930s. The couple had no children.

Gladys Pringle (nee Cherry) died in Godalming, Surrey, in 1965. Her ashes were spread upon the flower bed at her home.