London: A previously unseen document warning the Titanic of “wreckage” on its scheduled route will be auctioned in the UK after 104 years and may sell for an estimated 15,000 pounds.
Captain Edward Smith was given the document on the bridge of the liner before it left Southampton for its ill-fated maiden voyage to New York.
It is thought that the note must have been handed back to the messenger, as it was not on the ship when it sank after hitting an iceberg, the ‘Mirror’ reported.
The creased and lined note appears as though it had been screwed up into a ball before it was flattened back out when its significance was realised.
It ended up in the offices of lawyers hired to represent White Star Line, the company which owned the Titanic, for the multiple compensation cases.
In the report, the obstacle mentioned was the mast of a submerged wreck in the Atlantic. The warning gave its coordinates so that it could be avoided by the Captain.
The document has been made available for sale at auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son for an estimated 15,000 pounds. “The obstruction was not an iceberg which did for Titanic but the mast of a wreck that had been reported by the Rotterdam, a Dutch liner that had travelled from New York,” said Andrew Aldridge from Henry Aldridge and Son.
The document was acquired many years ago by an American collector of Titanic relics and he is now selling it on April 23 in the UK.
The Titanic sank in the North Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after colliding with an iceberg, resulting in the loss of more than 1,500 lives.
