Gold watch ‘exchanged for spot on Titanic lifeboat’ goes under the hammer

A watch said to have been used to gain a family’s spot on a Titanic lifeboat could fetch up to £50,000 at auction.

The watch was handed to a crew member by a passenger when the ocean liner sank more than 100 years ago.

However, it remains debated whether its owner – Albert Caldwell – used the timepiece as a bribe to secure his family’s spot on a lifeboat, or was merely gifted it in gratitude.

Now, the 19th-century watch is set to go under the hammer with auctioneers John Nicholson’s later this month, and is expected to fetch between £30,000 and £50,000.

It remains at the centre of one of the most hotly debated tales tied to the disastrous sinking of the Titanic on its maiden voyage.

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The ship sank in the early hours of April 15, 1912, five days into its journey across the Atlantic from Southampton on England’s southern coast to New York.

Of the 2,208 passengers and crew on board, around 1,500 died, making it one of the deadliest peacetime sinkings of a single ship.

The story of the Caldwell family

At the heart of the debate is whether Mr Caldwell bribed crew members with his watch to secure a place on one of the lifeboats.

In doing so, they also avoided being picked up by an ambulance waiting for Sylvia Caldwell on the quay in New York, which had been tasked with assessing her health.

The Caldwells, having arrived to the States on the rescue boat RMS Carpathia, managed to give the waiting ambulance the slip before heading back west, where Albert secured a job as a school principal within days.

Why the watch changed hands from Mr Caldwell to one of the ship’s stokers, however, remains a mystery.

Mr Caldwell himself changed his account of his family’s rescue several times throughout his life before he died in 1977.

In one recorded interview, he explained that lifeboats were initially being lowered and sent off only partially full, as passengers didn’t realise the ship was sinking and were reluctant to let their wives and children leave the boat by themselves.

However, after descending to a lower deck and speaking with some of the ship’s stokers, Mr Caldwell said he learned what was really going on.

At that moment, he claimed lifeboat number 13, which was being lowered past their deck half-filled with rescued passengers.

He claimed one of the stokers shouted to the crew above to hold it in position while the stokers and the Caldwell family climbed in.

A family photograph taken two days before the ship sank shows Mr Caldwell clutching 10-month-old Alden on the deck, with his wife standing next to them.

When the watch was previously sold in 1998, it had been assumed that ‘Elliot C’ – the son of the crewman who signed a letter of provenance – was Elliot C.

Everett.

However, it is now believed the signature ‘Elliot C’ refers to a surname beginning with C, meaning the watch could instead have been given to one of the engine room crew Albert had befriended.

The watch itself, originally the property of another relative before being passed to Mr Caldwell, is an 18ct gold-cased keyless half hunter pocket watch by Sutherland & Horne, Edinburgh, circa 1876.

It is engraved: ‘Presented to James Caldwell by the employees of the Pumpherston Oil Co.

Ltd on his leaving to take charge of the Mining Department at Deans, June 3, 1896.’
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