A first class passenger’s account of the sinking of the Titanic has been published for the first time nearly 100 years after the disaster.

Laura Francatelli wrote of hearing an “awful rumbling” as the famous liner went down and “then came screams and cries” from 1,500 drowning passengers.

Francatelli worked as a secretary for baronet Sir Cosmo Duff-Gordon and his wife Lady Lucy Christiana and travelled with them on the Titanic.

The employee told of how the three of them boarded one of the last lifeboats containing just five passengers and seven crew – and admitted they did not consider going back for survivors.

Wealthy Sir Cosmo later paid the crew members £5 each – worth about £300 today – and some say this was blood money for saving their lives.

She wrote her account in a signed affidavit which was presented to the official British inquiry into the 1912 disaster.

The historic document has now come to public light for the first time and is being tipped to sell for between £10,000 and £15,000.

Francatelli, who was aged 31 at the time, stated how she woke her employers when water seeped into her cabin after the liner struck an iceberg the night of April 14, 1912.

She wrote: “A man came to me and put a life preserver on me, assuring me it was only taking precautions and not to be alarmed.

“When we got on the top deck, the lifeboats were being lowered on the starboard side.

“I then noticed that the sea was nearer to us than during the day, and I said to Sir Cosmo Duff Gordon ‘We are sinking’ and he said ‘Nonsense, come away’.”

The party initially refused to go into a lifeboat as Sir Cosmo was not allowed on as only women and children were permitted but they were then offered places on a smaller rowing boat.

“There were no other women there by that time. The officer saw us and ordered us in, and we said we would go if Sir Cosmo could come also,” Francatelli said.

“The officer said to Sir Cosmo ‘I should be pleased if you would go’. We were dropped into this boat and lowered into the sea. Just as they were lowering the boat, two American gentlemen came along the deck and got in also. The Officers gave orders to us to row away from ship.

“There were seven sailors in the boat, Lady Duff Gordon, myself, Sir Cosmo and the two American gentlemen. Twelve in all.”

Francatelli wrote that they kept on rowing, fearing that as the Titanic sank they would be sucked in as well.

“We kept on rowing and stopping and rowing again. I heard some talk going on all about the suction if the ship went down,” she wrote.

“I do not know who joined in the conversation. We were a long way off when we saw the Titanic go right up at the back and plunge down.

“There was an awful rumbling when she went. Then came the screams and cries. I do not know how long they lasted.

“We had hardly any talk. The men spoke about God and prayers and wives. We were all in the darkness.”

She wrote how the survivors huddled in the bottom of the boat to keep warm until they were rescued by the ship Carpathia two hours after the sinking.

“The boat was not a lifeboat, but quite a small ordinary rowing boat and not too safe,” she wrote.

“It could not have lived in high waves for five minutes, in fact it was of so little use that when the Carpathia picked us up they let our boat go and did not trouble to take it aboard the Carpathia.”

Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, of Devizes, Wiltshire, which is selling the document, said: “Numerous books have been written about the Titanic disaster but this is a first person eye witness account written in the weeks after the sinking.

“It offers us a glimpse through the eyes of a Titanic passenger and survivor of what happened that tragic April night 98 years ago.”

Francatelli, from London, died in 1967. The document remained in her family until after her death and has since been owned by two private collectors.

The auction takes place on Saturday.