Miss Ellen Mary "Nellie"  Barber was born on 31 August 1885 in Penshurst, a small village located close to Tonbridge in Kent, England.

She was the eldest child of house carpenter William Hopkins Barber (1859-1935) and the former Fanny Izzard (b. 1859), both natives of Penshurst who had married on 24 August 1884.

One of just two children born to her parents, her only sibling was her sister Edith Emily(1) (b. 1888).

Nellie and her family appear on the 1891 census living at The Warren in Penshurst. At the time of the 1901 census the family address is The Square in Penshurst and a 15-year-old Nellie had no stated profession. Forwarding to 1911 the family home was still The Square but Nellie was not listed with her parents; instead, she was listed at the home of Mr and Mrs Tyrell William Cavendish at Little Onn Hall in Church Eaton, Stafford; they had an entourage of servants and Nellie was described as a domestic ladies maid. 

Having worked for Mrs Cavendish for at least a year and being no stranger to Atlantic travel with her employers, Miss Barber and Mrs Cavendish were shown entering the USA via New York on 25 January 1911 aboard the Oceanic. 

Nellie boarded the Titanic at Southampton and was travelling with Mr and Mrs Cavendish on their ticket (ticket number 19877 which cost £78, 17s); their destination was to Orienta Point in Mamaroneck, New York, the home of Mrs Cavendish's father Henry Siegel.

Miss Barber was supposed to share a cabin with another lady’s maid, but that maid’s employer wanted her closer at hand, leaving Miss Barber with a cabin to herself. She later stated that parts of the ship remained in an unfinished condition.
On the morning of 14 April, Miss Barber rose at her usual time and spent much of the day to herself:

“It was a nice day, and after breakfast I went up on board to sit in a deckchair and get on with some needlework. Next to me sat the millionaire, Mr Jacob Astor. All that afternoon was spent in reading and sitting in a deckchair in the warm Atlantic breeze… I remember Mrs Cavendish telling me there was a service in the lounge if I wanted to go to it. I did not go.” — Acton Gazette, 11 July 1958

Later that night, after checking that Mrs Cavendish was happy and needed no further assistance, Nellie went to bed at about 10.30 or 11 pm. She read for a short time but soon tired and switched her cabin light off before falling asleep. Miss Barber could not have been asleep for long when she felt a strange sensation:

“I just felt a bump. It made me stir momentarily, but that was all. I thought no more about it. Then I heard a lot of noise in the passage outside, so I thought I’d better go and investigate. I went up to Mrs Cavendish and she said it was nothing. I went back to bed. Then I heard more people shouting and running about in the passage. This time I knew there was something wrong, and I got up to go and see for myself.” — Acton Gazette, 11 July 1958

Miss Barber may have had a cabin on E-deck (she describes going “back down” to her own cabin from that of Mrs Cavendish, who was on C-deck); she described witnessing water flooding the foot of a nearby staircase and when she pointed this out to a nearby steward he grabbed her and shook her, for why she could not tell but assumed he was either overtaken by fear or that the steward believed she was losing her mind. She may have also seen the efforts of crewmen to manually close watertight doors on that deck, later assuming that they were malfunctioning and required human intervention. 

Confident that something was seriously wrong, Miss Barber went back to her employers, telling Mrs Cavendish to get up as she was sure something was dangerously amiss. Helping Mrs Cavendish to dress and taking time to put on their lifebelts, the small group made their way to the boat deck. Mr Cavendish saw the two ladies into a lifeboat, waving goodbye before disappearing among the other passengers. 

Miss Barber and Mrs Cavendish were rescued in lifeboat 6; the former described how it was discovered that the plug in the bottom of the lifeboat was not in place and this was only discovered just as the boat was about to drop into the water, with a hasty dash to secure it in place. Mrs Cavendish took to an oar whilst Ellen sat with her foot over the plug, lest it should come loose during the night. She recalled Mrs Rothschild being seated nearby her.

Nellie stated that she was in shock and could not witness the sinking for herself:

“I even hid my eyes when they told me the ship was going down behind us. I was too scared. The only way I knew it had gone was because until then the sea had been lit up by its thousand and one lights. Suddenly everything was black. I knew that for many the end had come.” — Acton Gazette, 11 July 1958

She also found the attitude of one of the crewmen (probably Hichens) in her boat to be unhelpful in soothing the fears of the passengers; rather than reassuring them that help would come, he instead lamented that the closest land was Newfoundland, perhaps unsettling Nellie (and others) to believe that they could be at sea for days in a lifeboat that she noted was devoid of provisions. She was thankful that as day broke she and others spotted Carpathia on the horizon.

Miss Barber sent a Marconigram to her parents' address; it was transmitted at 9.40 pm, probably on 18 April 1912:

Mrs Barber Penshurst nr Tonbridge Kent England
Safe
Nellie

Upon landing in New York aboard the Carpathia Nellie stated her closest relative as her father of The Square in Penshurst. She and her employer returned to England a few weeks later but she was soon to brave the seas again.

On 10 July 1912 Nellie arrived in New York aboard the Kronprinz Wilhelm with Mrs Cavendish and her children; they were travelling to the latter's father's home in Mamaroneck. Nellie then specified her closest relative as her mother back in Penshurst, Kent and she was described as standing at 5'8" and with brown hair and eyes and a fair complexion. She made another voyage in later years aboard Mauretania but after that, made no more ocean crossings. 

How long Ellen remained in the employment of Mrs Cavendish is not clear but although the pair parted ways in subsequent years, they remained in contact. She remained silent on the topic of Titanic for many years. 

Ellen never married and later retired to London, her last address being recorded as 18 Victoria Rise, Wandsworth where she lived with her sister Edith. In 1939 she was listed as a dressmaker. In 1958 she was a resident of 113 Wendell Road in Acton when she broke her silence of over forty years about the Titanic, granting an interview to The Acton Gazette. The interview was met with an angry letter of rebuke from survivor Violet Jessop, who took offence with the assertion that parts of the ship were left unfinished, seeing this as an affront to Thomas Andrews and the shipbuilders, and other details, including behaviour of the crew, particularly during the evacuation. Miss Jessop’s rebuttal was published in the same paper on 25 July 1958.

Nellie Barber died in London's South Western Hospital on 2 May 1963. Her death came just four months after that of Mrs Cavendish, who had passed away on 16 January.  She was cremated on 6 May at Streatham Park Cemetery & Crematorium in Lambeth and her ashes were scattered in the main garden at the crematorium (grid ref. K43). Her estate, worth £436, 18s, was administered to her aunt Blanche Constable(2) on 16 July 1963.