Watch given as gift to captain who rescued 700 Titanic passengers sells for record $2.6m

A gold pocket watch given by three widows to the steamship captain who rescued more than 700 passengers of the Titanic in 1912 sold at auction for a record £1.56 million (S$2.6 million) on Nov 16.

The 18-carat Tiffany & Co timepiece was given to Sir Arthur Rostron, then captain of the passenger ship RMS Carpathia, by the widows of Mr John Jacob Astor – the wealthiest man on the Titanic the day it sank – and two other businessmen: Mr John Thayer and Mr George Widener.

All three men died when the Titanic went down, but their wives who were with them on the trip survived.

The Carpathia – at the time en route from New York to Europe – was among the first ships that received the Titanic’s “we’ve struck ice, come at once” distress call.

Sir Arthur changed course and set off at full speed, reaching the Titanic two hours after it had sunk in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, killing more than 1,500 of the ship’s passengers and crew.

But the Carpathia managed to rescue about 700 passengers.

A private collector in the US bought the pocket watch for a sum that auction house Henry Aldridge and Son in Wiltshire said was the highest amount ever paid for Titanic memorabilia.

It carries the inscription “presented to Captain Rostron with the heartfelt gratitude and appreciation of three survivors of the Titanic April 15th 1912 Mrs John B Thayer, Mrs John Jacob Astor and Mrs George D Widener”.

Sir Arthur received the gift from Mr Astor’s wife at a lunch at the family’s mansion on Fifth Avenue in New York City, according to the auction house.

“It was presented principally in gratitude for Rostron’s bravery in saving those lives, because without Mr Rostron, those 700 people wouldn’t have made it,” Mr Andrew Aldridge from Henry Aldridge and Son said on the company’s website.

Prior to this auction, the previous Titanic memorabilia to set a record at an auction was a gold pocket watch that was recovered from Mr Astor’s body seven days after the sinking. The timepiece sold for £1.18 million in April.

Before that, the

violin that was played as the ship sank

held the record for the highest amount paid for a Titanic memorabilia for 11 years after being sold for £1.1 million in 2013.