Overview
- The items are consigned to Henry Aldridge & Son for a November 22 sale in Devizes, Wiltshire, with a combined estimate of about $66,000 (£50,000).
- Tomlin wrote the letter on April 10, 1912, after boarding in Southampton, then sent it from Queenstown as he described heartbreak over a woman named Rose.
- Tomlin, 21, died when the ship sank on April 15, 1912, and a diary recovered with his body bears the single-word entry “Titanic.”
- Auctioneer Andrew Aldridge calls the material one of the most complete Titanic archives to reach the market in decades and notes parallels to the film character Jack Dawson.
- The letter and diary are being offered publicly for the first time by a family member, adding personal context to Tomlin’s brief biography linking London and Drake University in Iowa.