Skip to main content

News

Explore Your Archive: A letter sent from RMS Titanic

  • 20th November 2013

Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service holds archives that can shed light on national and international events.  This letter was written on board RMS Titanic by Frank Millett, an American painter, sculpter and writer and sent to Alfred Parsons, a painter and illustrator, who lived in Broadway, Worcestershire. In the letter Millett describes the ship..

‘As for the rooms they are larger than the ordinary hotel room and much more luxurious with wooden bedsteads, dressing tables, hot and cold water, etc., etc., electric fans, electric heater and all. The suites with their damask hangings and mahogany oak furniture are really very sumptuous and tasteful… You can have no idea of the spaciousness of this ship and the extent and size of the decks.’

and the passengers..

‘Queer lot of people on the ship.’

A snippet of the Titanic letter held in Worcestershire Archives

The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage in April 1912, Frank Millett lost his life in the tragedy. This document is held at reference number x705:1235 BA 11302.

Comments are closed.

Related news


  • 19th May 2026
A lovely little limerick

For National Limerick Day, we would like to highlight perhaps our tiniest archive. It is National Limerick Day this month because it’s the 214th birthday of Edward Lear. He was the English artist, author and poet who popularised limericks in his 1846 Book of Nonsense published for children. With this in mind, we took a...

  • 16th May 2026
Hartlebury Castle Surrenders 1646

Today, 16th of May, marks 380 years exactly since the supposedly humiliating surrender of Hartlebury Castle during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (also known as the English Civil War). This event in 1646 was recorded by a single contemporary commentator, Henry Townshend of Elmely Lovett. He recorded that it was a place “which put...

  • 14th May 2026
W.P. Harper, famous football referee of Stourbridge

On 23rd April 1932, during the F.A. Cup final between Newcastle United and Arsenal, a refereeing decision would create controversy and change the result of the game. The referee, one W. P. Harper of Stourbridge, allowed an equalising goal for Newcastle that appeared to go out of play before ending in the net. Newcastle would...