“Forgotten Hollywood”- Cue the Violin…

Posted on May 16, 2017 by raideoman1 | No Comments

Manny P. here…

“`English violinist Wallace Hartley was the leader of musicians who had the job of entertaining the passengers on the RMS Titanic. But, they ended up playing music, in order to keep people calm, while the ship sank.  Wallace’s torso was recovered, two weeks later, with his violin case still strapped to his corpse.

                               WALLACE HARTLEY

“`After the death of the violinist, the instrument was sent back to England to his fiancé Maria Robinson.  When Maria died in 1939, her sister gave that violin to Bridlington Salvation Army. And, she shared the complete chronicle behind the instrument’s history to its representatives. Years later, it became the possession of a music teacher. He then handed the violin to friends, whose son found the instrument in his attic in 2006.

“`The discovery caught the attention of  Henry Aldridge & Son auction house, which began an investigation in order to confirm the authenticity of the instrument. It took seven years to gather evidence; and, another two years of forensic analysis, before proclaiming the violin to be the original one, owned by Wallace Hartley. The announcement was made in March, 2013. A leather case engraved with the initials W.H.H. was also analyzed.

“`Once the authenticity of this instrument was proven, Henry Aldridge & Son sold the violin to an unidentified buyer on October 19th, 2013. The initial price was set at $65,000. However, their bids surpassed all expectations; eventually bought for $1.7 million. It was later exhibited in Belfast, Northern Ireland at the shipyard where the Titanic was constructed; before making a trip to the United States for publicly display.

“`Wallace Hartley was hesitant to spend time away from his fiancé to join Titanic’s crew. But, in pursuit of future employment contracts, he decided to work on the ocean liner with his ensemble. Each cinematic production about the doomed ship faithfully recount his steadfast last hours, including the stoic British version — A Night to Remember.

“`His body was received by his father in Liverpool,  who traveled back to their hometown of Colne, Lancashire. Hartley’s funeral was held on May 18th, 1912, and was attended by over a thousand people, while approximately 40,000 more waited in line to pay their respects. A ten-foot headstone was erected above his grave site at Keighley Road Cemetery, with an opulent carved violin at its base.

Until next time>                               “never forget”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 16th, 2017 at 11:38 pm and is filed under Blog by Manny Pacheco. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.


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