Items belonging to ‘lucky’ family who sailed on Titanic go on display
The owner of the Titanic Experience in Cobh says it’s just the start of his search to fill the centre with artefacts which are especially associated with the town’s connection with the ill-fated liner.
Gillen Joyce, who opened the former White Star Line offices in Feb 2012 as an interpretive centre, secured a number of lots at a specialist auction in England which he put on display yesterday.
They include items belonging to the Odell family, first-class passengers who travelled on the liner from Southampton, via Cherbourg, to Cobh (then Queenstown) before disembarking on business trips in Co Cork.
While they were in Youghal, news filtered through that the supposedly unsinkable liner had gone to the bottom of the Atlantic.
When they returned to England, via a ferry from Cork to Swansea, the family attended a memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, on Apr 19 for the more than 1,500 passengers who lost their lives.
The memorabilia includes a blue leather Harrods dressing case brought on the journey by Lilly Odell and a hand-painted French silk and mother of pearl fan owned by the same lady.
Among the collection is a number of photographs featuring her son, Jack, including one in a Star Landaulette car rented from Johnson & Perrott while the family were in Cork.
“There’s also an original studio portrait of Millvina Dean and her brother Bertram and one of them on a photo postcard. Millvina was only a baby when the ship sank and she was the oldest living survivor until she died a few years ago. Before she died she visited the building here,” Mr Joyce said.
Lilly Odell’s sister-in-law, Kate, took some of the last pictures of the Titanic along with fellow passenger Fr Francis Browne who also disembarked by tender from the liner when it anchored off Cobh on Apr 12, 1912.
“The Odell family items were put up for auction by Marilyn Nightingale, who is a granddaughter of Lilly Odell. We purchased them from Henry Aldridge and Sons in the UK who deal exclusively with Titanic memorabilia,” Mr Joyce said.
He now plans to purchase even more memorabilia for the centre and build up the collection in the coming years.
“What’s unusual about these exhibits is that they’re connected with people who actually made a successful journey on the Titanic. There’s no doubt the Odell family were lucky. I have more plans to collect such artifacts over time and build up the collection.
“I would like in particular to concentrate on those which have direct connections to the liner and its visit to Cobh,” Mr Joyce added.
