How the Titanic encapsulates the human dilemma

Last month a gold pocket watch worn by John Jacob Astor, the richest passenger on the Titanic, was sold for £1.2m at auction.

The watch was not recovered from the wreck but had been found when his body was recovered from the sea. Rather like ‘My Grandfather’s Clock’, it had stopped at 2.20pm when the ship slipped into the freezing waters of the Atlantic.

At the time, Astor was worth $87million, which would make him a billionaire today. He was sailing to New York with his pregnant wife Madeleine. Like so many passengers, when the ship scraped an iceberg at 11.40pm he did not think that they were in any serious danger. Later he helped his wife into a lifeboat, and she survived. He, however, was turned away and joined other first-class passengers as the ship went down. He was last seen smoking a cigarette.