The keys and chain of the mail room on the Titanichave achieved £100,000 (€147,000) at auction in England, setting a new world record for Titanic memorabilia - and popularising the story of an Irish Titanic "hero", writes Tim O'Brien.
James Bertram Williamson (35), who lived on Dublin's Botanic Road, was one of two Royal Mail workers and three US postal clerks who, like the band and the captain, kept working as the Titanicsank.
The five men were last seen by passengers carrying 100lb sacks from the flooded mail room to the upper decks.
By the time they realised the Titanicwas going to sink, it was too late to save themselves. The clerks chose to keep on working and went down with the ship.
According to Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge & Sons in Devizes, Wiltshire, "even when it was obvious the ship was sinking, the men worked more quickly".
"Everyone knows the story of the band playing on and the brave engineers who worked to the last to keep the power going for the lights and the captain going down with his ship," said Mr Aldridge.
However, little was known about Mr Williamson and the other four postal workers who must "have been on odd sight for passengers to see carrying bags of mail up flights of stairs while Armageddon was going on around them . . .They were last seen feverishly sloshing through the bitterly cold water, grimly intent on their ever-hopeless task."
Bedroom steward Alfred Thessinger, who was one of the last to see the men alive, later recalled: "I urged them to leave their work. The shook their heads and continued at their work."
The chain containing the keys of the mail room was recovered from the body of one of the American postal workers, Oscar Woody of Virginia.
They were given with his personal effects to his widow, who donated them to his masonic lodge.
The identity of the vendor at Saturday's auction was not revealed.
Days after the disaster, the Rutherford Republican reported that the men had "died like heroes", and US postmaster general Frank H Hitchcock said their bravery "should be a source of pride to the entire postal service and deserves some marked appreciation from government".
The three US workers' families received $2,000 each in compensation. It is not known if the Royal Mail made a similar gesture to its two clerks.