Rarely seen Titanic artefacts kept in secret warehouse

A handbag made from alligator skin and tiny vials of perfume that still release a potent scent are just some of the precious artefacts recovered from the world’s most famous shipwreck – the Titanic.

The exact location of the warehouse where they are stored is a closely guarded secret, because of the value of its contents. All we can say is that it is somewhere in Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States.

Inside, the shelves are packed with thousands of items: from an upturned bathtub and dented porthole, to intricately etched glassware and tiny buttons.

The BBC was given a rare chance to look around the storage facility and discover the stories behind some of these objects.

“It’s a really beautiful, fashionable little bag,” says Tomasina Ray, director of collections for RMS Titanic Inc, the company that has recovered these artefacts. The US firm has the salvage rights to the ship and over the years has retrieved 5,500 items from the wreck site, a selection of which are put on display around the world.

The bag is made from alligator skin, which has survived decades in the depths of the North Atlantic. The delicate items inside have been preserved too, revealing details of the life of its owner – a third-class passenger called Marian Meanwell.

“She was a 63-year-old milliner,” says Tomasina. “And she was travelling to the US to be with her daughter who was recently widowed.”

Among the mementos inside was a faded photograph, thought to be Marian Meanwell’s mother.

There was also paperwork she would need for her new life in America, including a handwritten reference letter from her former landlord in London. It states: “We have always found Miss Meanwell to be a good tenant, prompt with payment.”

Her medical inspection card was inside too, as all third-class passengers needed to prove they weren’t bringing disease into the US. But this water-stained document reveals a tragic twist of fate.

Marian Meanwell was booked on the Majestic – another White Star Line ship. But it didn’t sail, so on the card, Majestic is crossed out and her passage shows that she was transferred to the Titanic and became one of 1,500 people to lose their lives.

“Being able to tell her story and have these objects is really important,” says Tomasina.

“Otherwise she’s just another name on the list.”

Items that belonged to survivors have also been brought back from the deep.

Tomasina opens a plastic container and a sickly-sweet smell fills the air. “It’s very potent,” she admits.

Inside are tiny vials of perfume. They are sealed, but their strong aroma escapes, even after decades on the seafloor.

“There was a perfume salesman on board and he had over 90 of these little perfume vials,” Tomasina explains.

His name was Adolphe Saalfeld and he had been travelling as a second-class passenger.

Saalfeld was one of the 700 people who survived. But with women and children prioritised during the evacuation, some men who made it off the ship were left troubled.

“He had passed by the time we found this,” says Tomasina. “But it’s my understanding that he did live with a bit of guilt – survivor’s guilt.”

Also in the collection is a champagne bottle – complete with champagne inside and a cork in the top.

“A little bit of water probably would have gotten in through the cork as it compressed and equalised the pressure. And then it just sat on the bottom of the ocean,” says Tomasina.

When the Titanic sank in 1912, after striking an iceberg, the ship split apart and its contents spilled out, creating a vast debris field.

“There are a lot of bottles on the ocean floor and a lot of stock pots and kitchen pots too, because Titanic actually broke up around one of the kitchens,” says Tomasina.

There were thousands of bottles of champagne on board. The liner’s owner wanted its first-class passengers to experience the ultimate in opulence, with sumptuous surroundings and the finest food and drink.

“It was like a floating palace and Titanic was supposed to be the most luxurious liner,” says Tomasina.

“So having champagne, having a gym, having all these amenities and these great things for the passengers would have been really important to them.”

The Titanic was on her maiden voyage, travelling from Southampton to the US, when she hit the iceberg.

The ship had advanced safety features for the time and was famously said to be unsinkable.

Tomasina shows us some of the ship’s rivets, chunky metal pins that held its thick steel plates together. There would have been more than three million of them.

“When Titanic sank, there was a theory that they were using substandard materials perhaps, and that’s what caused it to sink faster,” Tomasina explains.

Some of these rivets have been tested to see if they contain any impurities.

“There were high concentrations of slag in these, which is a glass-like material that makes them maybe a little bit more brittle in the cold,” she says.

“If these rivets were brittle, and one of the rivet heads popped off more easily, then it could have allowed the seam to open up where the iceberg hit and made it bigger than it otherwise would have been.”

Tomasina says there is still much to learn about exactly how the ship sank.

“We’re able to help look into the theories, so being able to contribute to the science and that story behind it is something that we’re very happy to do.”

Life on board was different for the social classes – even down to the cups and plates they would drink from and eat off.

A white third-class mug is simple and sturdy, with a bright red White Star logo. A second-class plate has a pretty blue floral decoration and looks a little finer. But a first-class dinner plate is made of more delicate china. It has a gold trim and, under the light, you can catch a glimpse of an intricate garland pattern.

“That pattern would have been coloured but, because it was coloured over the glaze, it was able to wash away,” says Tomasina.

The wealthy first-class passengers were given silver service for their meals – but in third class, it was a different story.

“Third-class passengers would have probably handled the china themselves – it was definitely meant to be much more stable and much more roughly handled than the other china,” explains Tomasina.

RMS Titanic Inc is the only company legally allowed to recover items from the site – it was granted this right by a US court in 1994. But it has to do this under strict conditions – the items must always remain together, so they cannot be sold off separately, and they have to be properly conserved.

Until now, all of the artefacts have been collected from the debris field. But recently the firm has stirred up controversy stating its desire to retrieve an object from the ship itself – the Marconi radio equipment which transmitted the Titanic’s distress calls on the night of the sinking.

Some believe the wreck is a grave site and should be left alone.

“Titanic is something that we want to respect,” Tomasina says in response.

“We want to make sure that we’re preserving the memory, because not everyone can go down to Titanic, and we want to be able to bring that to the public.”

More room could soon be needed on the shelves of this secret warehouse.

The company’s latest expedition to the site has involved taking millions of images of the wreck to create a detailed 3D scan.

And, as well as surveying the current condition of the Marconi radio room, the team have also been identifying objects in the debris field that they would like to retrieve in future dives.

Who knows what they will find and what untold stories each item may reveal about the ill-fated Titanic and her passengers.

Photo credits: Marian Meanwell: Patricia Chopra / Encyclopedia Titanica; Adolphe Saalfeld: Astra Burka Archives; Titanic wreck: RMS Titanic Inc; Titanic artefacts: Kevin Church / BBC; Historical images: Getty Images.

Design by Lilly Huynh