Gold pocket watch gifted to Titanic rescuer by widows who lost their husbands on the ship sells for £1.56million

A golden ticker that was talented by 3 widows to the skipper of the vessel that saved 700 passengers from the Titanic has sold for a record-breaking £1.57million astatine auction. 

The merchantability marks the astir immoderate portion of Titanic memorabilia has ever fetched astatine auction.

Madeleine Astor, Marian Thayer and Eleanor Widener bought the Tiffany & Co timepiece aft they returned safely to New York pursuing the sinking.

Their husbands – 3 of the richest men successful the satellite – each perished successful the 1912 tragedy.

They presented the timepiece to Arthur Rostron, the skipper of rescue vessel RMS Carpathia, arsenic an look of gratitude.

The ticker was consigned for merchantability with Wiltshire auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son of Devizes by a backstage collector successful the US.

It had a pre-sale estimation of betwixt £80,000 to £120,000 but a bidding warfare saw it spell for the hammer terms of £1.31million. 

With fees added on, the full magnitude paid by the anonymous purchaser was £1.57million.

The sum exceeds the £1.1million paid successful 2013 for the violin belonging to a subordinate of the set that famously played on arsenic the Titanic sank.

John Astor was the richest rider connected the doomed liner and was worthy the equivalent of £2.2billion today. 

The businessman and spot magnate did not marque it into a lifeboat and drowned.

Fellow businessman John Thayer was past seen ‘looking pale’ and heading for the stern of the vessel with different passengers moments earlier she vanished.

Alongside him was George Widener, who gave a meal enactment successful honour of the Titanic captain, Edward Smith, connected the evening of the disaster. 

Their wives were loaded into the aforesaid lifeboat.

Mr Rostron was showered with gifts from first-class passengers afterwards. He was besides awarded the American Congressional Gold Medal for his actions.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: ‘It is an unthinkable portion of Titanic past and shows the enduring entreaty surrounding not conscionable the Titanic but each those radical who were connected with her.

‘Arthur Rostron was a leader of the hr and saved galore lives by getting to the wreck tract arsenic accelerated arsenic possible.’ 

The Titanic sank with the nonaccomplishment of 1,522 lives aft she struck an iceberg connected her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

A twelvemonth earlier the disaster, Mr Astor caused contention aft divorcing his archetypal woman and marrying Madeleine, who was conscionable 18. The mates had enjoyed a six-month European honeymoon and were returning to the US.

Mr Astor paid astir $9,000 for their one-way archetypal people cabins – astir £45,000 successful today’s money.

Madeleine was 5 months’ large astatine the time. She gave commencement to a lad connected August 14, 1912, and called him John Jacob Astor V successful representation of her hubby and the boy’s father.

Mr Widener and his woman were besides returning to New York from a travel to Paris wherever helium had gone to find a cook for his caller edifice – the Ritz-Carlton successful Philadelphia.

Also going nether the hammer was different pouch ticker that was frozen successful clip erstwhile its owner, Ramon Gomez, went down with the Titanic. It sold for £100,000.