Unearthed Titanic iceberg snap gives rare glimpse at what sank 'unsinkable' ship

13 April 2024 , 08:47

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Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge with the rare photo of the iceberg (Image: CorinMesser/BNPS)

A newly unearthed photo of the iceberg that sank the Titanic gives a rare glimpse at the giant ice rock that forced the 'unsinkable' ship to snap in two.

The black and white image was captured by an undertaker working on the body recovery ship that arrived on the wreck site in the aftermath of the sinking. It shows a large glacier oddly shaped like an elephant above the surface of the north Atlantic and was taken two days after the luxury liner struck an iceberg on her maiden voyage and sank with the loss of 1,522 lives. The photographer, believed to be funeral director John Snow Jr, later put the snap in a cardboard mount and simply captioned it 'Titanitic' (sic).

Mr Snow's father ran an undertakers in Nova Scotia and when news of the tragedy broke he and his staff of embalmers were summoned to Halifax. They boarded the cable-laying ship the Mackay-Bennett which was loaded with 100 coffins and 100 tonnes of ice to preserve the bodies.

Titanic leaving Southampton bound for New York on her ill-fated journey (Popperfoto/Getty Images)

They had set off for the wreck site 800 miles away and arrived four hours later on April 17, 1912. The crew began their grim task the next morning. In all they recovered 306 bodies from the sea.Those identified as first class passengers were embalmed on the ship and placed in coffins. These included the bodies of John Jacob Astor IV, the richest man aboard and Isidor Straus, owner of Macy's department store.

Second class passengers were embalmed and wrapped in canvas and some 116 third class passengers and crew were buried at sea. The ship returned to Halifax seven days later with 190 Titanic victims. The 5ins by 3ins photo of the iceberg was passed down through the Snow family until it was acquired by a collector of Titanic memorabilia about 30 years ago. It is now coming up for sale at Henry Aldridge & Son Auctioneers of Devizes, Wiltshire for an estimated price of £4,000 to £7,000.

Stormy gales wash walrus and seals ashore as urgent warnings for SNOW issued

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge said: "Nobody can say for sure that this was THE iceberg that sank the Titanic. But what we can say is that after the rescue ship Carpathia, the Mackay-Bennett was one of the first ships to reach the wreck site and that the undertaker on board decided to take a photo of this iceberg.

"He must have had his reasons for taking a photo of this iceberg. He captioned it Titanic and mounted it for posterity. It hasn't been sold before and was acquired directly from Mr Snow's family by our vendor in the early 1990s. It is an extremely rare photograph and we are sure it will attract a lot of interest."

Another picture of an iceberg taken by Captain Wood that sold in 2020 (BNPS)

The 'unsinkable' Titanic was speeding through an ice field in the north Atlantic when it struck an iceberg at 10.20pm on April 14, 1912. Lookout Fred Fleet struggled to spot the glacier at first because the water was so calm that no waves were breaking at the base of it which was a tell-tale sign of one.

The liner sank at 2.20am on April 15. A photograph of another iceberg that could also have been the one Titanic struck on the night of April 14, 1912, has been seen before. That was one taken by a crew member of the Minia, another body recovery ship which arrived on the scene on April 22 - a week later.

And in 2020 a photo of an iceberg that was taken two days before the tragedy by the captain of a passing passenger liner sold at auction. Captain W. Wood was on the SS Etonian and he noted the geographic coordinates of the glacier which were almost the same for when the Titanic floundered 40 hours later. The latest photo is expected to be sold on April 27.

Graeme Murray