Titanic photos fetch fortune at auction
The photographs of the Titanic were bought at Christie’s by American Stanley Lehrer, a Titanic historian who boasts the world’s largest private collection of memorabilia relating to the doomed White Star liner.
The photos were snapped by Miss Kate Odell who was accompanying her 11-year old nephew, Jack Odell, on the trip from Southampton to Queenstown, now Cobh, on the first leg of the Titanic’s maiden voyage.
The 23 images in a battered album, included a photo of the enormous ship taken from a pilot tender two and a half miles off Queenstown, the last known image of Titanic before she sailed for America and disaster.
It shows the entire ship, smoke billowing from her four funnels as she leaves Queenstown bound for New York. 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 shows a close-up of the starboard side of Belfast-built Titanic, facing aft, giving an impression of its immensity and showing portholes, boarding doors and four lifeboats.
Another photo, taken by a third party, shows a smiling Jack Odell wearing a school cap standing with his aunt and two other passengers, identified as Stanley May and R W May, on Titanic’s compass platform.
