Instrument used on board the stricken vessel sold at auction

The instrument was played by bandleader Wallace Hartley, who died along with 1,517 others as the ship went down during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York.

It fetched three times its £300,000 guide price at an auction in Wiltshire, thus becoming the most valuable Titanic-related item ever sold.

Speaking before the sale auctioneer Alan Aldridge said the violin was the “rarest and most iconic” piece of Titanic memorabila.

It took seven years for the auction house Henry Aldridge and Son to confirm that the intrument - a gift to Hartley from his fiancee - was the genuine article.

The violin was found in a case strapped to his body when it was pulled from the ice waters of the Atlantic. After disappearing for more than 90 years it was discovered in an attic in Yorkshire in 2006.

Members of the Titanic's band stayed at their post after the Whitte Star struck an iceberg and continued playing in a bid to calm the passengers as the vessel sank.