Titanic passenger's postcard fetches £20,000

An "extremely rare" postcard written by a Titanic passenger who died after the liner hit an iceberg on 14 April 1912 has fetched £20,000 at auction.

First-class passenger Richard William Smith wrote to a friend in Norwich when the liner was at Queenstown - near Cork - in Munster, Ireland, on 11 April 1912.

The postcard has a Cork postmark - most Titanic postcards are either franked 'Queenstown' or bear the ship's postmark

Auctioneers based in Devizes, Wiltshire, who sold the postcard on Saturday, had expected it to fetch between £6,000 and £10,000.

Mr Smith was one of more than 1,500 people to die when the Titanic sank on 15 April 1912.

The liner left from Southampton but called at Cherbourg, France, and Queenstown - now known as Cobh - before setting out across the Atlantic.

Mr Smith had travelled with family friend Emily Nicholls, who sent the card for him when she disembarked in Ireland.

He wrote: "Have had a fine run around to Queenstown. Just leaving for the land of stars and stripes."

The postcard was one of more than 300 Titanic-related lots sold at an auction on Saturday.

Andrew Aldridge, the managing director of auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Son, said the postcard was "exceptionally rare" and would be of interest to Titanic specialists and stamp collectors.

"It is an incredibly powerful and poignant message," said Mr Aldridge.

"He had no idea of what was coming over the horizon approximately 80 hours later."

The postcard's lettering is in swirling ink and slightly unclear.

But the card appears to be addressed to Mrs Olive Dakin of 2 Albemarle Place, Newmarket Road, Norwich.

John Balls, chairman of The Norfolk Titanic Society and author of two books on the tragedy, said he remembered the postcard previously coming up for sale in the 1990s.

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