Medals, pocket watch and photos of titanic hero Harold Cottam fetch £42,000 at auction

The doomed Titanic

Medals awarded to the young telegraphist who picked up the Titanic’s distress call have sold for just under £42,000 along with other bits of his belongings.

Harold Cottam, 21, was a wireless operator aboard the passenger liner RMS Carpathia, and was off duty when he picked up the call on the night of 14 April, 1912.

For his actions, Mr Cottam, who was born in Southwell in Nottinghamshire, was hailed a hero and awarded a silver Carpathia medal and a Liverpool Humane Society medal for bravery.

A photo of Harold Cottam on deck is part of the collection going under the hammer Credit: Henry Aldridge & Son Ltd

The silver medal fetched £11,500 with the humane society medal going for £5,000. The collection also included Mr Cottam's pocket watch, which sold for £13,000, as well as photographs and signed paperwork.

At the same auction at Henry Aldridge and Son Ltd in Devizes in Wiltshire the entire Carpathia medal collection made £85,000, with the 32ft plan from the British Inquiry fetching £195,000 and the first class accommodation plan £60,000.

Mr Cottam was about to go to bed when he heard the radio station at Cape Cod trying to establish contact with the Titanic to transmit routine radio telegrams.

In what he had hoped would be his last business of the day, Mr Cottam radioed the Titanic’s operator, reminding him of the waiting messages.

The operator responded: "Come at once we have struck a berg. Position 41.46 N 50.15 W."

Mr Cottam raced to the bridge to tell the officer on watch and then the two ran to the cabin of Captain Arthur Rostron to give him the news. Capt Rostron gave immediate orders for the Carpathia to change course toward the Titanic.

The Cunard Line steamship was the only vessel to respond to the Titanic’s distress signals and arrived on the scene at 4am the following morning to rescue 700 survivors from the icy waters of the North Atlantic.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: "Cottam never cashed in on his fame, refusing even to be interviewed about the disaster for most of his life.

"Despite his relative obscurity, a true hero in every sense of the word and this archive represents the vital part he played in the lives of those saved from the Titanic."

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