When Elin Gerda and Edvard Lindell boarded the Titanic at Southampton, they were a young couple on their way to the next chapter of their married life.
But when the liner struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic ocean, the pair – third-class passengers – found themselves plunged into ice-cold water.
Edvard managed to pull himself into a lifeboat and reached for his 30-year-old wife’s hand. But, her fingers frozen in the -0.5C chill, she slipped away into the dark.
Even those who were lucky enough to make it on to one of the 20 lifeboats were not safe, with hypothermia still deadly.
Edvard, 36, became another of the estimated 1,500 people who perished after the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.
But the pair left something of themselves behind. A rescue crew found Elin’s wedding ring, inscribed with the couple’s names, at the bottom of the collapsible lifeboat.
It’s believed the gold band came off Elin’s hand and fell into the lifeboat as her husband was trying to pull her to safety.
This precious item is one of 200 artefacts from the Titanic currently being shown in London as part of Titanic: the Exhibition.
For curator Claes-Göran Wetterholm, who has spent more than 40 years researching the history of the doomed liner, it was important to tell the human stories behind the objects on display.
He said: “What makes the exhibition unique is that we put the items next to photographs of the people who owned them and tell their interesting stories.
“It gives it that human touch. Some of them really stand out to me.
“We have third-class tickets... postcards and diaries written from the ship and nightdresses worn by women after they had been woken up and rescued from the Titanic.
“When you hear the stories of the people who owned them and see the pictures that show them as real people, you can identify with them.
“It makes people think, ‘It could have been you or me on the ship’.
“I’ve seen visitors go to the exhibition and be standing in front of the displays reading the stories with tears in their eyes. It’s very powerful and moving.”
Another stand-out item from the Titanic is the pair of boots worn by Louise Kink, just four when she was woken up by her parents Anton and Luis and taken into a lifeboat.
Louise and her parents then watched from afar as the ship split in two and plunged into the water at 2.20am, just two hours and 40 minutes after striking the iceberg. Claes-Göran says Louise’s daughter, clearing out her mother’s loft after her death, also found the blanket Louise was wrapped in while in the lifeboat.
Like the boots, most of the items in the exhibit came from family members – Elin’s ring came from a distant relative who was “thrilled” for it to be on display.
Titanic collectors have also donated objects over the years.
Before docking in London, the exhibition travelled around the US, Asia and Europe and has been visited by more than three million people worldwide.
It’s clear that people have an enduring fascination with the Titanic, even 110 years after the ship’s sinking.
Claes-Göran said: “It was so long ago, but it is a story that still speaks to millions of people.
“It’s one of the most-told stories in human history. There are still stories left to uncover.” Another reason for the interest in the disaster of course stems from director James Cameron’s 1997 blockbuster film Titanic.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as lovers Jack and Rose, the film is the third highest-grossing movie of all time. But Claes-Göran says that it has also contributed to several myths and misconceptions about the Titanic disaster, which the exhibition also seeks to address.
He said: “I usually say it’s the best Titanic film ever made about what never happened. Technically, it’s just outstanding – but it becomes a problem when you use stories about real people who lived, but twist them into something that never was.”
Jack and Rose are thought to have been based on Henry Morley, 39, and Kate Phillips, 19, a couple who had fallen in love and decided to elope to California using pseudonyms. Claes-Göran said: “On the Titanic, Henry gave Kate a blue necklace – the inspiration for the Heart of the Ocean which Rose throws into the sea at the end of the movie. Kate survived, but Henry died.
“She cherished the necklace, which we now have in the exhibition.”
One of the persistent misconceptions about the Titanic, something also repeatedly quoted in the film, was that it was “woman and children first” on the lifeboats, with men being prevented from boarding them.
Claes-Göran said: “In 1912 it was important for people to say there had been a planned lifesaving mission on the Titanic, but there definitely was not.
“It’s true that on the port side men were not allowed on to the lifeboats.
“But on the starboard side First Officer Murdoch allowed men into a lifeboat if there was space. In fact, 80% of the men who survived the disaster owed their lives to him.
“In the film, it shows Murdoch shooting a passenger then himself. But that was lie, and I think it was wrong to show him like that.” As well as items from Titanic victims and survivors, there are also recreations of first, second and third-class cabins to give the exhibition an immersive feel.
Visitors can put their hands on a real iceberg to get a sense of how cold it was that fateful night.
Walking through the exhibition, you are struck by the fact that the replica third-class cabin does not resemble the cramped conditions scene in scenes from Titanic.
Claes-Göran said: “One of the Swedish Titanic survivors later said that they had ‘nothing to complain about’ in third class.
“She said the food was fantastic and the cabins were well decorated.”
For most first-class passengers, who dined on fresh oysters and filets mignons to the sounds of the ship’s orchestra, played shuffleboard and cricket on deck and enjoyed relaxing in the Turkish baths, the ship was a luxury cruise liner.
However, the majority of those travelling on the ship, especially those in third class, were doing so in order to emigrate to America.
Claes-Göran says the nationalities on board surprise some people.
He said: “While the biggest number of people on board were British, followed by Americans, people sometimes think they were the only nationalities on the ship, which isn’t true.
“In fact, the third largest passenger group were Swedish, and the fifth were Arabs. There were 88 third-class passengers from today’s Lebanon and Syria, who had travelled across the Mediterranean then boarded at Cherbourg, France to go to America. There were a lot of different languages spoken on board, and this was down to immigration.”
The last Titanic survivor, Brit Millvina Dean, who at two months was the youngest of the 2,208 people on board, died in 2009.
But Claes-Göran thinks all who sailed on the Titanic have a kind of immortality.
He said: “There is a quote that says, ‘as long as you mention somebody’s name that person lives’, which rings true to me in this context. Because we are talking about those people in the exhibition, their stories are not forgotten. We are keeping the memories of Titanic survivors and victims alive.”
Titanic: the Exhibition runs until April 17 at the Canada Water Retail Park in South East London. More information is available at titanicexhibitionlondon.com.
