Golden watch of an unknown hero during the Titanic disaster put up for auction
Kyiv • UNN
The watch of Carpathia ship engineer John Richardson is planned to be sold for 100,000 pounds. The accessory was presented to the engineer for saving over 700 passengers.
A gold pocket watch that belonged to an unsung hero during the Titanic disaster could fetch £100,000 (about €115,000) at auction, its sellers say, UNN reports with reference to the BBC.
Details
The item, which will go under the hammer in Penshurst later this month, was presented to a steamship engineer responsible for saving more than 700 passengers of the sunken ocean liner in April 1912.
John Richardson played a vital role in the rescue by the ship "Carpathia" of survivors from the Titanic's lifeboats, just hours after it sank in the North Atlantic, killing 1,500 people.
Justin Matthews, director of Hansons Auctioneers, described the watch as giving him "goosebumps" when he first held it.
He said: "It's chilling to realize the watch's connection to one of the most famous and tragic events of the 20th century."
Matthews added that it was thanks to the arduous efforts of Richardson and his colleagues below deck, who battled intense heat to keep the Carpathia's coal-fired boilers at full throttle, that the ship reached the scene so quickly.
"They transformed it from a transatlantic passenger vessel into a high-speed rescue ship under extraordinary conditions," he said.
"Their skill, endurance, and judgment directly impacted the lives saved," the auctioneer noted.
Scottish-born Richardson, then 26, was one of several engineers awarded an 18-carat watch by the Liverpool Fund for the Awarding of Engineers of the Carpathia at a ceremony held months after the incident.
The watch then remained in Richardson's family for almost a century before being offered for sale for the first time in 2003.
It was also exhibited to the public at an exhibition at the Southampton Maritime Museum in 1992 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Titanic disaster.
A pocket watch received by Carpathia captain Arthur Rostron from a wealthy widow of one of the victims on board was sold at auction in 2024 for a record £1.56 million (about €1.8 million).