Henry Aldridge & Son in Wiltshire, England, is offering a Titanic passenger letter by second-class traveller Henry Price Hodges, written days before the 1912 sinking, with an estimate of up to £35,000.
Dated April 10, 1912, and postmarked at Queenstown, Ireland, the letter was addressed to Hector Young of the Newtown Conservative Association in Southampton. Queenstown, now Cobh, was the Titanic’s final port of call.
Hodges described fine weather and little movement aboard the liner. He wrote that about 200 young men marched and sang on the top deck while other passengers played dominoes and cards, read or wrote in the saloons.
He closed the letter with “Goodbye, Hector” and signed it “H.P. Hodges.” Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said the note provides a rare account of daily life among the Titanic’s second-class passengers.
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Hodges boarded in Southampton with ticket number 250643, which cost £13, and was travelling to Boston to visit relatives. He died when the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912. His body was later recovered and buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.
The Henry Aldridge & Son online auction runs from July 16 to July 26. Bidding begins closing at 4 p.m. British Summer Time on Sunday, equivalent to 8 p.m. Pakistan Standard Time.
