Pendle museum to miss out on historic Titanic letter after auction bidding rocketed (From Burnley and Pendle Citizen)

Pendle museum to miss out on historic Titanic letter after auction bidding rocketed

8:00am Monday 23rd April 2012 in News By Tyrone Marshall, Reporter

THE TITANIC in Lancashire Museum is set to miss out on bringing Wallace Hartey’s last letter home, after bidding rocketed to over £50,000 in just four days.

Bosses at the museum will now ask the winning bidder if they can loan the letter to display it for a short period.

The Colne museum had wanted to buy the letter and had raised around £4,500 to bid for it, but with still four days to go the bidding has already hit $79,000, with bids now going up $8,000 at a time. The minimum bid was set at $5,000.

The letter, written by Colne-born bandmaster Wallace Hartley while on board the ill-fated ship, is one of a number of items being sold at an auction in New Hampshire, in the US.

Nigel Hampson, curator of the museum, said: “If we don’t win the letter – and it’s likely to go for a very high sum – the auctioneers will give the winner a special pack.

“This will include our pictures and a request to loan the letter to us for display in our museum.

“If we’re not successful in winning the letter the large sums of money pledged will be returned to people.

“The smaller sums will be used to buy Titanic artefacts with a Lancashire connection for the museum in Colne.”

The auction does not finish until Thursday, and there have already been 28 bids for the letter since the auction opened on Thursday.