Caledon Hockley

**Caledon Nathan Hockley** (1882 - 1929) is the extremely wealthy, but controlling, arrogant ex-fiancé of Rose. He is supposed to have married Rose in an arranged ceremony when they arrived in Philadelphia, yet her hatred for him due to his sociopathic, misogynistic ways and, later, her unexpected romance with Jack kept them from forming an intimate bond.

When boarding the *Titanic*, Cal was able to pay for the whole trip as first-class passengers due to his high wealth and social position. He was however, physically, emotionally, *and* psychologically abusive towards Rose. This was allowed to happen due to the fact that women were considered a man's material and sexual property rather than independent human beings by society during this time, especially in the upper-classes. They often had little freedom over their lives or whom they wished to marry, and men had complete dominance over them financially, spiritually and physically, as evidenced by the way Cal treated the women around him throughout the film. He is explicitly mentioned to not be richer than John Jacob Astor, who was the richest man on the ship, but being the son of a steel tycoon certainly makes him one of the wealthiest people on board. He and Rose travel in one of the Parlor Suites, which were the most expensive cabins that Titanic had to offer.

He was arrogant and snobbish, and an attempted *murderer* after it became publicly obvious that Rose was in love with Jack and not him. Cal was 30-years-old at the time of the sinking of the *Titanic* and survived only by a means of cheating his way onto a lifeboat with a deserted child. Cal died after committing suicide by shooting himself through the mouth due to his financial disaster during the Wall Street Crash of 1929.

## **Biography**

### **Early Life**

Caledon Hockley was born in 1882. He was from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is unknown who his mother was, but his father was Nathan Hockley, a successful American Pittsburgh steel tycoon who was very respected and powerful.

He was known to have travelled to England where he met Rose and her mother Ruth. Ruth arranged a marriage between Rose and Cal, despite Rose's dislike towards him, and they were to marry in Philadelphia after their voyage on the RMS Titanic. Not much else is known about his early life.

## **Physical Appearance**

Cal looked the part of the perfect 20th-century gentleman, cutting a dashing figure in his waistcoats and starched collars. Every garment he wore fit snug, as only a gentleman could afford to get his garments professional tailored. Coming from an old money family that gained its affluence through Pittsburgh steel, he was expected to telegraph his wealth in his style of dress.

He also practiced the urbane manners of his era, which while stringent in equanimity, could be exceedingly charming. Besides, it doesn't get any more sophisticated than surviving a sinking ship still wearing white tie.

## **Personality and Traits**

Cal has a confidence and ease about him in his interactions with the outside world, whether he is booking passage on the most luxurious ship he has ever seen or attempting to persuade Rose to ‘come to me’ and ‘open up your heart’ (be sexually intimate with me, Rose). It gives him pleasure to own and touch things, but this intense physicality also has a dark side -- he isn’t above overturning a table in his rage or slapping Rose when he finds out she has posed naked for an artist behind his back. His scheming opportunism shows most under the pressure of the impending disaster, where he barters for a place on a boat by bribing Murdoch, then walks away from it to find Rose, confident he can find some other way to escape. Later, when he cannot bribe his way onto another lifeboat, Cal sees and grabs up a child, pretending to be her father and the only person she has in the world, to earn sympathy and a place on the lifeboat. He can be, at times, reckless and impulsive, such as when he chases after Jack and Rose into the bowels of the ship. Cal tends to judge people at face value and relies on Lovejoy to keep an eye on things for him, but also has a head for business.

Cal makes coldly rational decisions at every turn (using a child to get onto the lifeboat, bribing an officer to let him on, sending Lovejoy after the lovers to fetch his diamond, focusing on business conversations after dinner, and being a successful businessman in the States, etc) but reveals his blind spot when it comes to emotions -- he mistakes physical intimacy for emotional intimacy and believes having sex translates into Rose letting him into her heart, he doesn’t realize asserting his dominance over her as his property will backfire and make her more determined to fall for Jack. He asserts his opinions easily (“Rose and I differ in our opinion of fine art...”) but is quick to realize the social implications of his words and backtrack (“Not to impugn your talent...”). He becomes irritated with Rose when she ‘humiliates’ him by being rude and dismissive at the luncheon table with Ismay and Thomas Andrews. He uses an emotional appeal to try and convince Rose to open her heart to him (and a lavish gift). Under stress, he becomes more emotionally erratic and childish -- snapping and slapping Rose, calling her a slut, and deliberately insulting her and Jack.

Cal is a self-confident and arrogant man who finds ways to point out that he is superior to Jack and belittles his lack of ambition and carefree lifestyle; he tells Jack the conversation in the smoking room would not interest him, since it’s all about business and politics. He cares about how things look to others, which is why he chastises Rose for being rude at the lunch table and puts out her cigarette because her mother doesn’t like it. He changes his approach instantly upon Rose sticking up for Jack and calling him a hero, and invites him to dinner, where he can ‘treat’ the lower-class to a fine dinner and show off his business prowess and powerful friends. Cal becomes angry at her increasing disdain for him and refusal to act socially appropriate, because it reflects on him, but also has the 3 inability to connect in a meaningful way to his emotions or to understand them. He has a warm likability around other people and enjoys their company, but can become resentful of Rose’s lack of reciprocation for his gifts (he thinks, in a very immature low-health level way, that he can ‘buy her’ with the diamond, and that giving her something equates love).

## **Boarding *Titanic***

In 1912, Cal boarded the Titanic with Rose and her mother, Ruth. The trio, accompanied by their servants, were on their way to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, so Cal and Rose could be married. He had purchased tickets for the Private Promenade/Parlor Suite on B-Deck where he made fun of Rose's taste in art, ironically criticizing the artwork of Monet and Picasso.

Despite his negative comments, Rose ignored him and continued talking to her maid/friend Trudy. In a deleted scene, Rose and Trudy left the Sitting Room to find a place for the Degas of Dancer painting. She placed it on a vanity in her bedroom as Trudy began unpacking. She commented on the ship smelling brand new and tells Rose she will be the first person on the ship to sleep beneath the fresh, crisp linen sheets. Cal interrupted them and began to flirt with Rose (much to her discomfort).

At lunch, Cal undermined Rose further by ordering her food for her and taking away her cigarette and stubbing it out. After a barbed remark from Rose to Bruce Ismay, Rose left the table and went onto the deck, where she first spots Jack from a distance. Cal came outside and started to scold her by grabbing her arm, but she breaks away from him.

Later that night, Rose tried to commit suicide by climbing over the ship's rails in order to avoid the arranged marriage and what she saw as a miserable, false life. However, she was stopped by Jack, the 20 year old third class man whom she saw earlier, who convinced her not to kill herself. Rose attempted to climb back over the rails, but slipped and screamed, which alerted other people. Jack managed to haul her up and pull her back onboard, but they both fell onto the deck in a heap just as others arrived.

Upon arriving at the scene, Cal assumed Jack had tried to rape Rose, but she was able to convince him that she had slipped whilst looking at the propellors and was then saved by Jack (as she didn't want Cal to know that she had tried to kill herself). Cal prepared to take her back to his room, but another high-class man said that he should give something in return for Jack's good deeds. He was going to give him a $20 bill, but Rose was disgusted by this. To impress Rose, he invited Jack to dinner instead in the first class, which Jack agreed to.

As Jack and Rose met again and began to fall in love, Cal initially remained oblivious; however his manservant and bodyguard, Spicer Lovejoy, began to suspect something going on between the two. Jack attended the dinner service in the first class the following night, where Cal and Ruth did their best to publicly undermine him. Later that night, Rose attended a third class party with Jack and was spotted dancing with him by Lovejoy, who informed Cal.

The next morning at breakfast (April 14th), Cal threatened Rose, stating that she was his "Wife in practice, if not yet by law, so you will honor me. You will honor me the way a wife is required to honor a husband". He left Rose visibly distressed and frightened, and this together with a guilt-trip from Ruth about their financial situation led Rose to avoid Jack. However, a heartfelt speech from Jack led to her later returning to him and kissing him. Rose then disappeared, with Lovejoy unable to locate her. Cal later found a drawing of a nude Rose wearing The Heart of the Ocean along with a tormenting note inside the safe. Cal had Lovejoy plant the necklace on Jack when the pair re-appeared, then claimed it was lost and had Jack searched.

The master-at-arms arrests Jack for theft and had him locked to a pole in the master-at-arms office on E-Deck. Once Jack was kidnapped, Cal slapped Rose and called her a slut, but before he could continue, he was ordered to go to a lifeboat (as the iceberg had hit by this stage). Cal was with Rose when Thomas Andrews told her that Titanic would sink and she needed to get to a lifeboat as soon as possible. Cal, Rose, Ruth and Molly Brown headed to the boat deck, after Cal returned to his cabin with Lovejoy and pocketed some money and the diamond necklace.

When the lifeboats were preparing to leave, Ruth asked if the lifeboats would be seated according to class and remarked that she hoped the lifeboats wouldn't be too crowded, to which Cal smiled. When Rose told her to shut up because half the people on the ship were going to die, Cal callously remarked, "Not the better half". Cal also said that he should have kept Jack's drawing as it would be worth a lot more by morning, intimating that by then Jack would be dead.

At that point Rose called Cal an "unimaginable bastard". When Ruth told Rose to get into the boat, she said "Goodbye, mother" and went to leave. Cal stopped her and said "Where are you going? To him? What? To be a whore to a gutter rat?". Rose replied venemously, "I'd rather be his whore than your wife". As she turned to leave, Cal tried to stop her and she broke free, spitting in his face just as Jack had earlier taught her. Rose ran through the crowd while Cal stood there appalled. Rose then saved Jack and both began looking for a way out.

When the Titanic began to sink, Cal was determined to have Rose escape. Jack tried to convince Rose get onto Collapsible D, but she was determined not to go. Despite Cal's hatred for Jack, Cal gave Rose his jacket (forgetting that he had put the necklace in the pocket), saying that she looked a fright. Cal roughly caressed her face but Jack got between them and pulled Rose aside, asking her to get in the boat. Cal convinced Rose to go by saying that he had made an arrangement in which he and Jack could both board a boat, as he had earlier bribed William Murdoch to let him board. Rose went unwillingly onto the lifeboat. Whilst being lowered down, Cal told Jack the arrangement was only for himself and that he always won. Rose soon realized that she couldn't go on without Jack, so she jumped back onto the sinking Titanic in order to stay with him.

Cal became angry at seeing their emotional reunion on B deck. He took Lovejoy's gun and chased the two down the Grand Staircase down to the flooding Reception Room on D-Deck in an effort to shoot them. The gun quickly ran out of bullets, and he gave up his pursuit after the ship creaked and groaned around him, yelling "I hope you enjoy your time together!". He went back on deck and tried to board Collapsible Boat A being filled by Murdoch, however Murdoch had decided against letting him on because of the "Women and Children first/only" rule.

When Cal reminded him of the deal, Murdoch replied, "Your money can't save you any more than it could save me." and threw the money back at Cal. A panicked mob of passengers then crowded around the lifeboat but Murdoch held the crowd at gunpoint. Murdoch shot an unknown male passenger who tried to board and then unintentionally shot Thomas Ryan after a passenger shoved him forward, to Cal's shock. Murdoch then killed himself with the gun. Moments later Cal found a lost child and was allowed to board a lifeboat after passing the child off as his own.

As the ship continued to sink, the boat he was on became trapped, due to no-one releasing the lifeboat from its falls, but it was freed when Jack's friend, Fabrizio De Rossi, cut it loose. A few minutes later Cal witnessed Fabrizio get crushed by one of the massive funnels, after the ropes holding it up snapped due to the strain. Cal was seen shoving people trying to climb into the boat back, saying that they would swamp the boat it's possible that he witnessed the Titanic breaking in half. He survived the sinking and, whilst waiting for the RMS Carpathia to arrive, he was seen to accept a sip of whiskey from another passenger.

After being rescued, he searched for Rose whilst on the RMS Carpathia, but could not find her and believed she had died in the shipwreck. She had actually escaped but was avoiding him, by hiding her face in a blanket. Rose watched Cal as he searched for her and saw him walk away. It was the last time she ever saw him.

### Later Life and Death

Later in life, Cal married someone else and inherited his family's millions. However, in the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Cal fell into financial ruin and committed suicide by shooting himself in the mouth. His children later fought over the scraps of his estate like hyenas as Rose claimed she read.

### Legacy

In 1993, treasure hunter, Brock Lovett began a hunt for Caledon's lost necklace. the Heart of the Ocean, but was unsuccessful for 3 years. In 1996, Hockley's room was discovered and his safe recovered but the diamond was not there. However, Brock found the drawing of Rose that Cal left in the safe. Rose, at age 100, saw it on TV and went to the ship to discuss the events of the sinking. She was proved to be telling the truth about her knowledge of the diamond by saying that the insurance claim would have been made by someone called "Hockley".