Titanic pocket watch could sell for £50k at Wiltshire auction

A pocket watch found among the belongings of a passenger who died when the Titanic sank, could fetch up to £50,000 at auction.

The ladies’ pocket watch was recovered from the body of Danish second-class passenger Hans Christensen Givard, 27, who had been travelling to the US with two of his friends who also died in the disaster.

The watch is being sold by his descendants and will go up for auction at Henry Aldridge and Son, in Devizes, Wiltshire, on 26 April.

“This piece is documented in the official list of Hans’ effects compiled by the authorities in the weeks after the Titanic disaster and has remained in his family ever since,” said auctioneer Andrew Aldridge.

“The watch’s movement is frozen in time at the moment the cold North Atlantic waters consumed not only its owner but the most famous ocean liner of all time, Titanic, on 15 April 1912,” he added.

The watch was found when Mr Givard’s body was recovered from the water after the disaster which claimed the lives of 1,517 people, and he is buried at Halifax, Canada.

A savings book, keys, some cash in a wallet, a compass and a passport belonging to him were also recovered. All his belongings were returned to his brother in Denmark.

Mr Givard’s story inspired a book in Denmark about Danish people’s stories from the Titanic.

The watch, which has traces of saltwater corrosion, also formed the centrepiece of an exhibition on the Scandinavian element of the Titanic story in Copenhagen in 2012.