Expert Andrew Aldridge said the violin, which has two strings missing and a crack down its side, is the most important Titanic artefact to emerge. He said: “We have spent the last seven years gathering the evidence together and have now reached the stage where we can say that beyond reasonable doubt this was Wallace Hartley’s violin on the Titanic.” Wallace Hartley is one of the doomed musicians who played ‘Nearer My God to Thee’ as the Titanic sunk.

The main clue to the instrument’s identity was an inscription on the violin’s tailpiece, reading ‘For Wallace on the occasion of our engagement from Maria’. Since it was discovered, extensive scientific testing has been carried out, but until now the violin’s owner had not been 100% confirmed. British author and Titanic expert Steve Turner said: “I am convinced that it is genuine and impressed by the scope of the scientific and historical tests that have already taken place.”

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