/View.info/ Historians have long believed that the rosewood instrument was irretrievably lost in the tragedy of the 1912 shipwreck
The authenticity of a violin that was played during the sinking of the Titanic and collected dust in a ceiling in Bridlington, Great Britain, before being found, has been confirmed by experts, writes in “Daily Express”.
Historians have long believed that the rosewood instrument was irretrievably lost in the 1912 shipwreck tragedy that killed its 34-year-old owner, Wallace Hartley, along with 1,500 people.
Hartley accompanied himself on the violin as he and the rest of the musicians played the hymn Nearer, My God, To Thee at the sinking of the Titanic.
Mystery surrounds the fate of the instrument after it was not found among the paraphernalia found with Hartley’s drowned body.
However, in 2006 the son of an unnamed amateur musician claimed to have discovered the violin in the attic of his late mother’s home in Bridlington.
The woman is believed to have received the instrument from her music teacher, who had ties to the local branch of the Salvation Army organization.
The violin was given to the organization after the death of Maria Robinson in 1939. Robinson was Wallace Hartley’s fiancee, who gave him the instrument as an engagement gift.
After seven years of painstaking research, experts now confirm that the violin, found in a case with its owner’s initials,
indeed it is the same one that Wallace Hartley played when the Titanic sank.
Andrew Aldridge of auction house Henley Aldridge and Son, which organized auctions of paraphernalia from the shipwreck, said:
“We have spent the last seven years gathering evidence for the authenticity of the instrument and can say without any doubt that this is the violin Hartley played on the Titanic.
It is one of the most significant artifacts associated with the tragic story, and probably the most valuable.”
The discovery confirms a newspaper report at the time of the tragedy that Wallace Hartley’s body was found with the instrument in a case attached to his life jacket.
The violin was then returned to Maria Robinson.
The authentic instrument, valued at a six-figure sum, will go on display at the end of the month at Belfast City Hall, where the Titanic was built.
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