Gold watch of Titanic hero could get £100k in Penshurst auction

A gold pocket watch owned by an unsung hero of the Titanic disaster could fetch up to £100,000 at auction, those selling it say. The item, which goes under the hammer in Penshurst later this month, was awarded to the engineer of a steamship responsible for saving more than 700 of the stricken ocean liner's passengers in April 1912. John Richardson had been instrumental in the RMS Carpathia rescuing survivors from the Titanic's lifeboats, just hours after it had gone down in the North Atlantic, killing 1,500 people. Justin Matthews, director of Hansons Auctioneers, described the watch as having given him "goose bumps" when he first held it. He said: "It is spine-tingling to know the watch's connection to one of the most famous and tragic events of the 20th century." Matthews added that it was due to the gruelling efforts of Richardson and his below-deck colleagues, who battled intense heat to keep the Carpathia's coal-fired boilers fully stoked, that it reached the scene as quickly as it did. "They turned it from a transatlantic passenger ship into a high-speed rescue vessel under emergency conditions," he said. "Their skill, endurance, and judgment directly translated into lives sa

Apr 14, 2026 → Apr 14, 2026