Family pleads for return of Titanic hero’s final letter

The family of an officer who chose to go down with the Titanic have appealed for help to return to his home city a letter he sent from the doomed liner.

The two-page letter Dr John Edward Simpson wrote to his mother days before the ship sank is due to fetch at least $50,000 dollars (€37,000) when it is sold at a New York auction house.

His relatives, who say they cannot afford to bid for the valuable artefact, desperately want it brought back to Simpson’s native Belfast, where the Titanic was built, to be put on display.

Fearing it could be snapped up by a private collector and lost from public view forever, they hope a benefactor can step in.

“The family can’t afford to buy it and it would be great if a donor or benefactor could be found who would purchase and return it to Northern Ireland for public display,” said Simpson’s great-nephew, Dr John Martin.

Survivors of the 1912 disaster, said Simpson, 37, the assistant surgeon on board, stood with fellow officers on the deck of the vessel as it sank, making no attempt to board the lifeboats, but instead helping others to safety.

Dr Martin said the letter had been passed down through the generations in the family and the plan was always for it to go on display in a permanent Titanic exhibition in Belfast.

However, 15 years ago, Dr Simpson’s 81-year-old daughter-in-law gave it to a Titanic enthusiast in the Netherlands in the hope it would go on display.

What happened to it after that remains a mystery to the family, and Dr Martin, 63, said his family has always regretted its loss.

He said they thought it was gone for good until they heard it was to be sold at Philip Weiss Auctions in New York.

“There aren’t that many actual Titanic artefacts which relate specifically to Belfast and he was, as far as I am aware, the only serving officer on Titanic who was a native of Belfast,” he said. “And the letter was one of the last objects to leave the ship before the sinking — all of those things really make it quite a unique artefact.”

The letter, dated Apr 11, 1912, and written on notepaper headed RMS Titanic, was brought ashore at Cobh, Co Cork before the ship set sail for America. It was dispatched to Simpson’s mother Elizabeth, who lived on Belfast’s Dublin Road.

In it, the married father of one said he was tired but settling into his cabin well.

He had previously worked on the Titanic’s White Star Line sister ship the Olympic and told his mother the accommodation on his new vessel was larger. Simpson, who treated second and third-class passengers, signed off: “With fondest love, John.”

Three days later he died along with 1,500 others after the ship struck an iceberg.

Simpson’s story will form part of the £90m (€105m) visitor attraction that is opening in Belfast ahead of the 100th anniversary of the sinking.