Titanic memorials

In 1912 British stamps bought across the post office counter cost from a halfpenny to a pound, writes Richard Stenlake. Black and white or sepia picture postcards cost a penny black and it was twopence for coloured. If those postcards were connected to the Royal Mail Ship Titanic then they would have been the better investment by far.

Most contemporary Titanic cards have some value. The one exception perhaps is the Titanic Engineers’ Memorial in East (Andrews) Park, Southampton erected in 1914. There are a number of old postcard views of this, but the commonest is a printed card by Valentine of Dundee. At the time of writing there’s one for sale on ebay for £2.50 including postage. The example illustrated was published by Rood Brothers of Southampton. Other common Titanic memorials are at Liverpool, Belfast and New York City atop the Seaman’s Institute. These turn up pretty regularly at around £5 to £10. Not so common is the memorial to Lieutenant William Murdoch, a native of Dalbeattie, South West Scotland, and First Officer on the doomed liner. He went down with her, and was portrayed as corrupt and worse in the 1997 James Cameron movie, to the extent that there was considerable anger provoked in the close-knit Kirkcudbrightshire town. In the end the 20th Century Fox vice-president travelled to Dalbeattie and personally apologised to Murdoch’s nephew, also donating £5,000 to top up the fund for the annual William Murdoch Memorial Prize in the school where he was educated. In unforeseen ways like this the Titanic story seems to have an unstoppable momentum. The postcard of the Murdoch memorial is perhaps on first sight a little dull or boring. It would be easy to pass this by without noticing its significance, but this is a £40 to £50 card even with the creases.