A letter written by a Titanic passenger just days before the ship’s sinking has sold for a record-breaking £300,000 ($400,000) at auction in the UK.
The letter, penned by Colonel Archibald Gracie, was purchased by an anonymous bidder at Henry Aldridge and Son auction house in Wiltshire on Sunday. The final price was five times higher than its original estimate of £60,000.
Described as “prophetic,” the letter captures Col Gracie telling an acquaintance that he would “await my journey’s end” before judging the “fine ship.”
Dated 10 April 1912 — the day Col Gracie boarded the Titanic in Southampton — the letter was written from his cabin, C51. It was posted when the ship stopped in Queenstown, Ireland, on 11 April, and postmarked in London the following day.
Auctioneers said the letter fetched the highest price ever achieved for a piece of correspondence written aboard the Titanic.
Col Gracie was among the roughly 2,200 passengers and crew bound for New York, more than 1,500 of whom perished when the ship struck an iceberg and sank. His detailed firsthand account of the disaster later formed the basis of his book, The Truth About The Titanic.
He survived the sinking by clinging to an overturned lifeboat, later recalling that more than half of the men who initially reached the boat died from exhaustion or cold.
Although he survived, Col Gracie’s health deteriorated due to hypothermia and injuries sustained during the tragedy. He fell into a coma on 2 December 1912 and died two days later from diabetes-related complications.
Nzubechukwu Eze.
