Last Titanic photos set to fetch up to £15,000

THE last photographs of the Titanic, snapped by a woman accompanying her 11-year old nephew on the doomed trip from Southampton to Queenstown, are included in an album set to fetch up to stg£15,000 at auction.

The album includes a photo of the enormous White Star liner taken from a pilot tender two-and-a-half miles off Queenstown, now Cobh the last known image of Titanic before she sailed for America and disaster.

The emotive pictures were taken by Kate Odell who, with nephew Jack Odell, disembarked at Queenstown for a touring holiday of Ireland. The 23 photos, featuring nine taken on or off the ship, are estimated to fetch between stg£12,000 £15,000 at Christie's maritime sale in London on May 21.

The maiden voyage ended in disaster, with the loss of 1,523 lives after the liner grazed an iceberg and sank off Nova Scotia.

Another photo, taken by a third party, shows a smiling Jack Odell, camera strapped around his neck, standing with his aunt and two other passengers, identified as Stanley May and R.W May, on Titanic's platform.

Further photos show the SS New York swinging out across Titanic's bows.

Although Jack is seen with his camera, it has never been established what happened to any photos he may have taken with it. "Despite the subsequent significance of the photographs the whole event seems to have made little lasting impression on him," Christie's specialist Charles Miller said.