The £1m gold watch that belonged to the Titanic's richest passenger

A gold pocket watch found on one of the Titanic's richest passengers is expected to sell for more than £1million, 113 years after the ship's tragic sinking. The 18-carat Jules Jurgensen timepiece belonged to Isidor Straus, co-owner of New York's world-famous Macy's department store. He perished alongside his wife, Ida, in April 1912.

The couple were immortalised in James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic as the elderly pair seen holding one another in bed as the doomed liner went down. On that fateful night, Ida famously refused a place in a lifeboat, declaring she would not leave her husband’s side. 

Isidor’s body was later recovered from the Atlantic, and among his personal effects was the gold watch, which had stopped at 2.20am, the exact time the Titanic slipped beneath the waves.

The watch, engraved with Straus’s initials “IS”, was returned to the couple’s son, Jesse, and has remained within the family for more than a century. It was lovingly restored by Isidor’s great-grandson, Kenneth Hollister Straus, who has now decided to part with it.

The timepiece will be auctioned by Henry Aldridge & Son in Devizes, Wiltshire, on November 22, alongside a rare letter written by Ida Straus aboard the Titanic, days before the disaster.

Penned on the ship’s own stationery, Ida’s letter to a family friend captures the splendour of the world’s largest liner.

It read: “What a ship! So huge and so magnificently appointed. Our rooms are furnished in the best of taste and most luxurious.”

She also described the near collision Titanic narrowly avoided with the SS New York as it departed Southampton.

She wrote: “Size seems to bring its troubles. The danger was soon averted, and we are now well on our course across the channel to Cherbourg.”

The letter, franked “TransAtlantic 7” in the ship’s onboard post office, was taken off at Queenstown (now Cobh), Ireland, making it one of the last surviving pieces of mail from the Titanic. It is tipped to fetch around £150,000.

Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge described the watch as “one of the finest and rarest objects from the Titanic story”, adding.

He said: “At the turn of the 20th century, a pocket watch was among a gentleman’s most treasured possessions. This one, given by Ida to Isidor on his 43rd birthday in 1888, embodies their love and tragedy.”

The couple’s refusal to be separated has become one of the most enduring stories from the disaster, which claimed 1,520 lives. Ida’s body was never recovered.

If sold for its estimated price, Straus’s watch will join a small list of record-breaking Titanic artefacts. Last year, the gold watch of Carpathia’s captain, who rescued more than 700 survivors, fetched £1.56 million, while bandmaster Wallace Hartley’s violin sold in 2013 for £1.1 million.

Aldridge added: “This watch has been treasured by generations of the Straus family. It represents not just immense historical significance, but the timeless devotion of one of the Titanic’s most famous couples.”

The auction takes place on November 22 at Henry Aldridge & Son, Devizes.