The timepiece was awarded to John Richardson, a Scottish-born engineer aboard the RMS Carpathia – the steamship that rescued more than 700 survivors from the Titanic’s lifeboats in April 1912, just hours after the liner sank in the North Atlantic with the loss of 1,500 lives.

Mr Richardson was 26 years old when the disaster struck, and his role in the rescue was far from passive. He and his fellow below-deck engineers laboured in intense heat to keep the Carpathia’s coal-fired boilers at full capacity, effectively transforming the transatlantic passenger vessel into a high-speed rescue ship under emergency conditions.

Justin Matthews, director of Hansons Auctioneers, credited their efforts directly with the speed at which the Carpathia reached the scene. “Their skill, endurance, and judgment directly translated into lives saved,” he said.

Mr Matthews described holding the watch as a spine-tingling experience, given its connection to one of the most famous and tragic events of the 20th century. Mr Richardson was among several engineers honoured with an 18-carat gold timepiece by the Liverpool-based Carpathia Engineers’ Presentation Fund, whose founders felt the men’s vital contribution had been woefully overlooked.

The watch remained in the Richardson family for nearly a century before first coming to auction in 2003, and was also displayed publicly at a Southampton Maritime Museum exhibition in 1992 marking the 80th anniversary of the sinking.

The sale comes in the wake of a record-breaking result for another Carpathia relic: the pocket watch presented to Captain Arthur Rostron by the wealthy widow of a Titanic victim sold at auction in 2024 for £1.56 million, setting a new benchmark for Titanic-related memorabilia.