20-04-2025
Titanic victim's pocket watch set to fetch £50,000 at auction
A ladies' pocket watch found among the belongings of one of the passengers who drowned on the ill-fated maiden voyage of the Titanic could sell for up to £50,000 at auction.
Danish second-class passenger Hans Christensen Givard, 27, was among the 1,500 who died when the vessel struck an iceberg in 1912. Givard was travelling to the United States with two of his friends, who also perished in the disaster.
The watch was recovered when Givard's body was found in the North Atlantic, and he was later buried in Halifax, Canada. In his pockets were a savings book, keys, some cash in a wallet, a silver watch, a compass, and a passport.
Also recovered was the gilded ladies' pocket watch, which bears traces of saltwater corrosion. All his belongings were returned to his brother in Denmark, and it is his descendants who are selling the watch.
The tragic story of Givard directly inspired curator Jesper Hjermind and his niece, journalist and US resident Mette Hjermind McCall, to write the book "Titanic - De Danske Fortællinger (Titanic - The Danish Stories)," in which the pocket watch is mentioned. It was also exhibited by Claes Goran Wetterholm, the leading authority globally on the Scandinavian aspect of the Titanic story, in Copenhagen in 2012.
The watch is going under the hammer at Henry Aldridge and Son, of Devizes, Wiltshire, on April 26. Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: "This piece is documented in the official list of Hans's effects compiled by the authorities in Halifax, Nova Scotia in the weeks following the Titanic disaster and has remained in his family ever since."
"It was one of the centrepieces of the display of Titanic memorabilia in the Tivoli in Copenhagen in 2012, which illustrates its importance," he added.
"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, the Titanic, on April 15, 1912." —PA Media/dpa
