Mr Alexander Taylor Compton was born in Manhattan, New York on 16 August 1874.

He was the son of Alexander Taylor Compton (b. 1842) and Mary Eliza Ingersoll (b. 1847). His father, a lawyer, was a native of Newark, New Jersey whilst his mother hailed from Westchester, New York. He had two siblings but lost one in infancy, his brother Lorin Ingersoll (1870-1872). His surviving sibling was his elder sister Sara Rebecca (b. 1872). The family would appear on the 1880 census living in New York and on the 1885 census living in East Orange, New Jersey. His father Alexander died on 30 January 1902 and the remaining family later settled in Lakewood, New Jersey.

A bachelor, Mr Compton and his family travelled extensively and owned various hotels in New Hampshire, Louisiana, and maintained a summer residence at the Laurel House in Lakewood, New Jersey. He was a keen golfer.

Together with his mother and sister Sara, he boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg as a first class passenger (joint ticket number PC 17756, £83, 3s, 2d). He occupied cabin E-52.

When the Titanic was sinking Compton calmly reassured his mother and sister that he would follow them in another lifeboat. Mrs Compton desired to remain with her son rather than leave him. "Don't be foolish, mother. You and sister go ahead. I'll look out for myself."

Alexander Compton did not survive the sinking but his mother and sister survived. His body, if recovered, was never identified.

He was memorialised on the family monument in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, Newark, New Jersey.

Courtesy of Michael A. Findlay, USA