Heroic bandmaster’s violin looks set to fetch titanic sum at auction

Hartley, who lived in Dewsbury, was the leader of the eight-piece band who sacrificed their own hopes of survival to play hymns in an attempt to calm passengers on the so-called unsinkable vessel.

If proved to be authentic by further tests, the violin will have survived the tragedy which claimed the lives of more than 1,500 people after the ship hit an iceberg and sank on April 15 1912.

The auction, expected to take place later this year, will be hosted by Titanic experts Henry Aldridge & Son, in Wiltshire, who have spent seven years compiling evidence proving “beyond reasonable doubt” that it is the real thing.

The anonymous owner claims to have found the violin in a travelling case bearing the musician’s initials at his mother’s home in Bridlington in 2006.

Hartley’s last words were reported to be “Gentlemen, I bid you farewell”, moments before the ship disappeared under the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

It was thought that the instrument had been lost after reports at the time claimed Hartley’s body was found with his violin strapped to his chest but when Body 224 was examined by the Office of the Provincial Secretary in Nova Scotia, there was no mention of it.

The instrument, which has two strings missing and a crack down the side of its rosewood body, will go on display in Belfast, where the Titanic was built, at the end of this month. It is expected to fetch more than £400,000 at auction.