article: A 103-year-old deckchair  recovered from the wreck of the Titanic  is expected to fetch around £80,000 at auction. The chair was on the first class promenade deck when the liner sank after hitting an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912. It was found bobbing on the surface of the Atlantic by the crew of the Mackay-Bennett, who were sent to recover the bodies of the victims after the tragedy. A 103-year-old deckchair recovered from the wreck of the Titanic is expected to fetch around £80,000 at auction . The ship's log records six or seven deckchairs being picked up and taken back to port in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One was given by a crew member to Captain Julien Lemarteleur, who had previously worked on board the Mackay-Bennett. It has since been owned for 15 years by an English Titanic collector who kept it by a large window overlooking the sea at his home on the south coast. The anonymous owner has never sat on it due to its fragile state and instead used it as a display item. Andrew Aldridge, of auctioneers Henry Aldridge and Son, described the piece as one of 'the most important [bits] of Titanic memorabilia around'. He said: 'It is incredibly rare to find something of that size that was on Titanic, was salvaged and that still exists today. Six or seven recovered deckchairs were stacked on the deck of the Mackay-Bennett as it arrived in Nova Scotia . Titanic (above) sank with the loss of 1,522 lives four hours after it struck on iceberg at 10.20pm on April 14 . 'You would not use it for practical purposes but have it on display. It would make a great conversation piece. 'There were a couple of thousand deckchairs on board Titanic and many of them were found floating on the wreck site. 'We have been able to access the Mackay-Bennett's log book, which confirmed the crew not only picked up deckchairs but that the ship's carpenter spent time repairing some of them on the way back to Halifax.' The chair is made of teak wood and has an adjustable footrest at the front. It is 57 inches long, 23 inches wide and 35 inches tall. It has a five pointed star on top of it, which was the emblem of White Star Line - the company that owned the Titanic . It has a five pointed star on top of it, which was the emblem of White Star Line - the company that owned the Titanic. Upon his death in 1973, Capt Lemarteleur gave the chair to colleague Captain Robin Lee. The current owner acquired it in 2001. Being sold with the chair is an in depth 'provenance package' that authenticates history and association with Titanic. Captain Julien Lemarteleur (above), who collected the chair from the Mackay-Bennett more than 100 years ago . It includes a signed affidavit from Margarete Pennington, who was Mr Lemarteleur's housekeeper in the 1960s. In it she states: 'I personally saw the deckchair that Captain Lemarteleur told me about on many occasions. He said that various pieces of debris taken from the ocean including this Titanic deckchair he acquired. 'I recognise the chair as the same chair I saw in the captain's garage and of which the captain identified as coming from the Titanic.' Craig Sopin, 57, a lawyer from Philadelphia, owns one of the world's largest collections of Titanic memorabilia. He also authenticated the chair and said: 'It isn't often that one has the opportunity to acquire such an important part of Titanic's story. 'For such a significant item to have such a meticulous chain of custody is nothing short of astonishing. Its history can be traced from the auction house back to Titanic itself.' Titanic sank with the loss of 1,522 lives four hours after it struck on iceberg at 10.20pm on April 14. A ship, the Carpathia, picked up more than 700 survivors in lifeboats hours later and took them back to New York. White Star Line chartered four ships, including the Halifax-based cable-laying vessel the Mackay-Bennett, to recover the bodies. The deckchair is being sold in Devizes, Wiltshire on April 18. March 31, 1909: Construction work on Titanic begins in Belfast Harbour. May 31, 1911: Titanic is first launched in front of an audience of 100,000 people. April 10, 1912: Titanic departs Southampton around noon with 922 passengers on board. Minutes later, it narrowly avoids colliding with two ships, New York and Oceanic. 4pm: 274 passengers embark at Cherbourg, France. 8pm: Titanic leaves Cherbourg, bound for Queenstown, Ireland. April 11: The ship arrives at Cork, Ireland, around 11.30am. 1:30pm: Titanic departs from Ireland after picking up 113 more passengers and sets off for America. April 14: Titanic's crew are warned by other ships of drifting icebergs. 11:40pm: The ship's lookout spots an iceberg immediately ahead and warns the captain, but it is too late. Titanic collides with it and begins taking on water. April 15: Titanic suddenly starts sinking faster around 2.20am, plunging more than a thousand people into the freezing cold water. 4am: First ship arrives after an earlier SOS call from Titanic, saving 710 people. September 1985: The wreck of Titanic is found.
highlights: Chair was on first class deck when ship hit an iceberg in April 1912 .
  Mackay-Bennett crew members found it while clearing up the wreck .
  Owned for last 15 years by English collector and will be auctioned on April 18 .
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