An Olympic record has been set by a Tyneside auction house.
Two sets of ceiling lights from the liner Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic, achieved record prices at Newcastle auctioneers Anderson & Garland.
The lights were removed from the vessel when she was partly dismantled at Jarrow in a scheme to provide work for the unemployment-stricken town.
A pair of ormolu and glass ceiling fittings sold for £37,700, while a brass three-branch light achieved £43,000.
The three-branch fitting, believed to have come from the ship’s First Class Smoking Lounge, comfortably passed the £23,400 achieved in 2023 for similar lights.
The ormolu pair, believed to be from the First Class Grand Staircase, almost doubled the £19,500 achieved for a similar pair in 2024.
To the best of the auctioneers’ knowledge, the latest sales set a saleroom record for lights from RMS Olympic.
Olympic arrived in Jarrow on October 13, 1935, and her fittings were auctioned over several days, with many bought for homes and businesses in the North East.
The liner had been bought for almost £100,000 by industrialist Sir John Jarvis, MP for Guildford in Surrey, as part of his campaign to provide assistance to Jarrow after being shaken by the deprivation he witnessed there.
The ormolu lights sold in the latest auction had been removed from a Northumberland house around 30 years ago and kept in storage since.
Another set of Olympic lights previously sold in Newcastle had been in a Lanchester, County Durham, property since the 1930s and were believed to have come from a First Class corridor.
Olympic had a 24-year career between 1911 and 1935, including wartime service as a troopship.
Her superstructure was removed at Jarrow before, on September 19, 1937, her hull was towed to Thos. W. Ward’s yard at Inverkeithing in Scotland for final demolition.
