Capitalising on the Titantic: Boyhood home of captain for sale: Title Tattle
The Stoke-on-Kent, West Midlands terrace house where Titanic captain Edward John Smith was born is up for sale. The skipper of the ill-fated liner grew up in the two-bedroom Victorian terrace in Hanley in Staffordshire, which is now on the market for £79,500. His pottery worker parents are believed to have lived in the house for more than a decade and after he left school he worked at the Etruria Forge before heading off to sea aged 13, where he progressed from ship's boy to captain.
Property investors Neil and Louise Bonner secured the house for £35,000 as an investment in 2002 and rented it out. But now in the 100th anniversary of the Titanic tragedy, they have put on the market through Reeds Rains in Hanley. Its listings of-two bedroom terraces range in price from a North Road house for £29,500 to a Leek New Road house for £90,000.
Stoke-on-Trent is considered to be the home of the pottery industry in England and is commonly known as The Potteries. A pottery craft plaque was unveiled at the house on Well Street on the weekend funded by the Burslem-based Titanic Brewery, which notes the captain's birthday of January 27, 1850 and the date of the doomed liner's sinking – April 14, 1912
TheLiverpool home of Joseph Bell, the chief engineer on the Titanic, is also on the market (pictured above).
It’s a pricier offering, with the double-fronted two-storey Belvidere Road, Crosby house listed for £420,000.
Bryn Mel Manor is situated in Anglesey, on the west bank of the Menai Strait, at the north west of Wales, is another house with supposed Titantic links. It’s been marketed as built in 1899 as the summer residence of the family of the owners of the White Star line. But local historians doubt the claim and say it was built for the wealthy Liverpool ship owner Edmund Johnston, whose 1880s shipping company operated cargo vessels from Liverpool to the Black Sea, Greece and Turkey – but soon branched out into American beef.
Its price guide is £1,100,000 after failing to sell at recent auction. The 39-bedroom house (pictured above) has been a nursing home in recent times.
