The ashes of a child conceived aboard the Titanic were scattered in the Atlantic yesterday by Padstow Lifeboat crew. Ellen Walker died in October last year, aged 92.

The tragic story of the love affair between her parents, Henry Morley, 37, a married Worcester shopkeeper, and Katy Phillips, a 19-year-old shop assistant, is thought to have inspired the characters of Jack and Rose, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet (pictured left)in the Hollywood film.

The couple had booked a second-class crossing to begin a new life in America under the assumed names of Mr and Mrs Marshall. Miss Phillips, one of the last passengers to get into a lifeboat, survived and eventually returned to England. Her lover did not.

In her will, Mrs Walker left the majority of her estate to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) and said that she wanted her ashes to be scattered at sea. After a service on the RNLI lifeboat The Spirit of Padstow, her ashes were scattered off Cataclew Point, near Padstow. Mrs Walker’s son, Robert Farmer, 70, said: ‘I think that she wanted to be in the same place as her father because she had never been close to him or known him.’