The possessions of a New Jersey man, who was lost at sea when the Titanic sank in April 1912, are expected to fetch over $100,000 at auction next month. This collection has been with Frederick Sutton’s family for over a century. According to the Henry Aldridge & Son auction house, Sutton, who was 61 years old and a first-class passenger, had recently traveled to the UK on medical advice because of an unspecified illness.
Among the items being auctioned are a first-class passenger manifest and a unique personal item bag that was recovered. His belongings include a gold watch with a chain, a tie pin, a notebook, a knife, three silver spoons, a gold seal ring marked with the initials “FS,” and $13 in change found in a wallet. The bag was retrieved by Sutton’s son-in-law in Halifax about two weeks after the tragic sinking.
The auction will take place in Devizes, Wiltshire, on November 22, with a second part of the collection scheduled for April 2026, marking 114 years since the ship went down. One surviving passenger recalled sitting next to Sutton in the dining room just days before the disaster; Sutton mentioned that he didn’t feel well. There’s speculation that he might have been one of the elderly passengers trapped in his cabin after the iceberg collision, according to the auction house.
Sutton was in cabin D-50 and is considered one of the few first-class passengers who were buried at sea. The Titanic, famously known as the largest ship in the world at the time, sank early on April 15, 1912, less than three hours after hitting an iceberg. Of the more than 2,200 people on board, only about 700 survived the disaster.
