Bandmaster’s Titanic letter sells for €109,000

A letter written by the bandmaster of the Titanic who carried on playing as the doomed ship sank has sold at auction for £93,000 (€109,000).

Wallace Hartley, 33, has became a key figure of the disaster as — together with his seven other band members — he carried on playing until the very last moments. The violinist, who travelled as a second-class passenger on Titanic, wrote a letter to his parents as the ship set off from Southampton on Apr 10, 1912.

Experts estimated the letter would fetch around £50,000 but a bidding frenzy saw the hammer go down at £93,000 at Henry Aldridge and Son in Devizes, Wiltshire.