Photo: Unsplash.com
RMS Titanic was a passenger liner of the White Star Line company, which collided with an iceberg in the North Atlantic on its maiden voyage on the night of April 14-15, 1912 and sank, taking about 1,500 people with it.
Several people who were caught in the water were also saved. One of the heroes of the event was Arthur Henry Rostron. He is best known as the captain of the ocean liner RMS Carpathian. Survivors were rescued to the ship in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean.
Thanks to him, 700 people in the water were saved.
After the accident, the captain received a pocket watch as a gift as a thank you for his work.
The pocket watch in question was now sold at auction for almost 1.9 million euros.
A watch as a thank you for a heroic deed
The watch has quite a history. The captain received an 18 carat Tiffany & Co. pocket watch as a thank you for his heroic deed.
Auction house Henry Aldridge & Son sold the watch to a private collector in the United States on Saturday. The trade amount was $1,968,408.
According to the auction, the sum is the highest ever paid for Titanic memorabilia.
The watch was once given to Rostron by someone who survived the accident John Astor’s widow.
John Jacob Astor IV was an American businessman who died on the RMS Titanic. He was from the old American Astor business magnate family. The family’s financial success began at the end of the 18th century, when John Jacob Astor I became considerably rich with land and fur trades.
The watch was found in the victim’s clothes
Astor’s pocket watch was in the clothes of the person who drowned in the accident after he was found. The man was found seven days after the ship sank.
Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said Titanic memorabilia has set two records this year. It shows the value of the continuing fascinating story and the dwindling supply and high demand of the ship’s artifacts.
“Every man, woman and child had a story to tell, and those stories are told more than a century after the accident through memorabilia,” he said The New York Post according to .
Rostron and his crew were hailed as heroes for their actions in sinking the Titanic.
An emergency call came over the radio
The Carpathia was sailing from New York to the Mediterranean when the distress call was heard from the Titanic early on April 15, 1912. Rostron was sleeping in his cabin. After waking up, he immediately ordered his ship to head full steam towards the sinking ship.
When the Carpathia arrived, the Titanic had sunk and 1,500 people had perished. But the crew found 20 lifeboats in the sea and rescued more than 700 passengers, bringing them back to New York.
President William Howard Taft presented Rostron with the US Congressional Gold Medal, and the King George V later knighted him.
Madeleine Astor was one of the saved. Her husband had helped her into the lifeboat. Astor presented the watch to Rostron over lunch at his mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York. Madeleine Astor was a millionaire John Jacob Astorin second wife. When the Titanic sank, Astor was five months pregnant.
Without Rostron, those 700 people would not have survived.
Source: hymy.fi
