Titanic officer’s letter heads home thanks to a mystery benefactor

A mystery benefactor has stepped in to ensure a valuable letter written by an officer days before he died on the Titanic will return to his home town.

There were fears that the note Dr John Simpson penned to his mother on the doomed liner would be snapped up by a private collector and lost from public view forever when it was put up for auction in New York with a $34,000 (£21,600) reserve price.

But after hearing about a campaign by relatives of the ship’s assistant surgeon to bring the letter back to his native Belfast where the Titanic was built, a donor, who does not want to be named at this stage, has bought it for the city just weeks before the 100th anniversary of the tragedy.

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According to witnesses who survived the 1912 sinking, Dr Simpson, 37, stood with fellow officers on the deck of the stricken vessel as it went down. They resigned themselves to their fate, making no attempt to board the lifeboats and instead calmly helped others to safety.

His great-nephew, Dr John Martin, said he was happy the letter was coming back to where it belonged.

“I’m absolutely delighted,” he said. “I’ve never actually seen the original letter itself as it was last in Belfast in the 1940s before Dr Simpson’s son moved away. So for it to be on its way back is just amazing and so appropriate now just ahead of the 100th anniversary of his death. We are so thankful to the benefactor.”

The letter had been passed down several generations of the family and Dr Martin said the plan was always to have it placed in a permanent Titanic exhibition in Belfast.

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But he said 15 years ago Dr Simpson’s 81-year-old daughter-in-law gave it to a Titanic enthusiast in the Netherlands in the hope it would go on display. However, what happened to the letter after that remained a mystery to the family and Dr Martin said relatives had always regretted its loss.

They thought it was gone for good until they heard it was to be sold at Philip Weiss Auctions in New York. But the item failed to reach its reserve price at the sale earlier this month, enabling the benefactor to step in and purchase it for an undisclosed sum.

Dr Martin said the letter will soon be back in Belfast, with the intention of putting it in a public exhibition before the April anniversary of the disaster.