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Titanic Testimony: Albert Horswill

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,000.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Titanic Testimony: Albert Horswill

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Auction Date:2014 Apr 24 @ 18:00 (UTC-5 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
Sailor and White Star Line employee (1879–1962) who served as an able bodied seaman on board the Titanic and crewed Life Boat 1. Notated radio script, nine pages, 8.5 x 11, for Horswill’s appearance on the WGN radio program Headlines of Other Days, broadcast on May 10, 1934. In the script, he recounts the building and maiden voyage of the ship, and provides exceptional details of the Titanic sinking and rescue of passengers. He incorrectly gives the boat number as 16 and states that there were 43 people in it, in fact it was boat 1 and there were only 12 aboard. In part: “The Titanic was some ship! The kind of craft that'd fill any seafarin' man's heart with pride…I'll never forget the scene when we pulled away at Southampton! The Titanic was the biggest ship on the sea and thousands came from all around to see her off. Our beam was so broad we nearly pulled the pier down as we steamed out into the harbor, stern first…I was asleep in my bunk in the foredeck quarters when she struck. The newspapers later said there had been an ‘almost imperceptible shock.’ I'm here to tell you that the impact threw us all out of our bunks…The seriousness of the situation was soon realized, but only by the officers and crew. The passengers were the calmest lot I ever saw. They scoffed when we tried to tell them things looked bad. Some of them actually returned to their cabins…At 12:30 came orders: ‘All passengers on deck with life belts on.’ A dozen of us were given clubs and sent into the steerage to get the third class passengers out. First we tried to talk to them, but they wouldn't come out. Then, reluctantly, we used the clubs. But even then some of them turned around and ran back refusing to come upon deck. They died, poor fools, like so many flies…We started to lower the boats. Some of them were only partly filled. The ship was settling rapidly, the bow nosing down first. At the very beginning of the voyage the crew had been ‘told off,’ that is, every man had been assigned to a station in case of emergency. I had been assigned command of lifeboat No. 16. That assignment saved my life! From 12:45 to 2:05, 16 lifeboats and four collapsible rafts were launched safely. The main promenade deck was awash when my boat, the last, left the davits. As we were being lowered I heard Captain Smith shout to me: ‘Pull away as fast as you can!’ I never heard his voice again. He went down with his ship, brave man that he was! We had pulled away about 100 feet when the Titanic went down. She seemed to go down by stem, fore-end first, gradually taking in water. When she was about half submerged, she broke in halves and the after part came down into the water with an impact that could be heard a great distance…I remember that the lights in the cabins burned until the dynamo room was submerged. You could see them burning under the water. Just before the ship cracked in two I could hear the band playing ‘Nearer My God to Thee.’…Lady Duff-Gordon, half naked, lay on the bottom of the boat. All the passengers were seasick. There was moaning and groaning and a chattering of teeth. I tore off my sweater and gave it to one old woman who cried all the time.” Horswill has made a few pencil notations to the script. In very good condition, with scattered light toning and soiling, as well as horizontal folds and some creases. Accompanied by a printed biography of Horswill, as well as a listing of those in Life Boat 1, including Horswill and Sir and Lady Duff Gordon. An incredibly detailed moment-by-moment from one of only 215 surviving crew members, who was later called to testify at the British inquiry into the disaster.