Leopold Lipót Weisz (1875 - April 15, 1912) was a Hungarian politician, student of sculpture, and the only passenger and victim of the RMS Titanic of Hungarian origin.
Biography[]
Leopold Weisz was born around 1875 in Veszprém, Hungary, to Jewish parents whose names are unknown. At the age of 19, he emigrated and went to England to study at the Association of Applied Arts in Bromsgrove, where he met his future wife, Mathilde Françoise Pede of Belgium. She worked as a seamstress and singer and went to Bromsgrove at the age of 21, where she married Weisz.
They were living in Albert Terrace, Victoria Road, Bromsgrove in 1911. The married decided to emigrate to Canada. The pair crossed the Atlantic in September 1911 aboard the RMS Lusitania. Weisz found work in Canada as a woodcarver on behalf of the Museum of Fine Arts in Montreal. Later he was commissioned to carve stone shields. His stone shields represent nine provinces of Canada to this day, on the Dominion Express Building in Montreal.
Titanic[]
Weisz thought Quebec was the place where they could settle down and make a living from art, so he went back to England to pick up his wife. They were due to travel together to their new Canadian home in First Class on the Lusitania, but due to a strike by miners and the resulting shortage of coal, they were transferred to the Second Class of the Titanic. They stepped aboard the liner in Southampton on 10 April. Weisz was 37 years old at the time.
Before takeoff, Weisz sewed his savings — about $15,000 worth of gold weighing 21kg — into the lining of his jacket. On the night of April 14Weisz went for a walk aboard the ship while his wife attended an impromptu singing party in the Second Class Dining Room. After the event, she joined her husband.
Mathilde then remarked that something was very uneasy about her. Leopold thought it had to do with change of climate, becaue they were know in the ice fields. They were returning to their cabins when the ship hit an iceberg at 12.40 P.M.. His wife survived the disaster by successfully securing a seat in lifeboat 10, but Weisz was lost.
After his death[]
Mathilde arrived in New York aboard RMS Carpathia on 18 April, but was in danger of being sent back to England penniless. However, when the ship Mackay-Bennett found the body with life jacket No. 293, later identified as Leopold Weisz (with the initials W.L. on his shirt under his grey suit), gold sewn into the suit was also found, which was returned to him. Mathilde remained in Canada, remarried, and died in 1953.
Weisz is buried in Montreal, Baron de Hirsch Cemetery. The inscription on his grave reads:
"Leopold Weisz, born around 1880 in Hungary. He died on April 1912, 15 in the disaster on the Titanic. He recently married and started a new life in Montreal. A talented and promising sculptor, he is a member of the Bromsgrove Industrial Corps, and his work is admired both in Montreal and abroad."