R.M.S. TITANIC: A rare photograph of Titanic's Purser Hugh W...

Hammer

£360

R.M.S. TITANIC: A rare photograph of Titanic's Purser Hugh Walter McElroy shown holding a parrot. While assigned to the Adriatic, according to a news story printed by The Fort Wayne Sentinel (Fort Wayne, Indiana) dated 28th of July 1910, McElroy had been looking after a parrot with notable skills - one that could tap out messages from the ship's wireless with its foot. The owner, a Mr Joseph Finley, caught the parrot in Germany, it having escaped from a zoo. In London he showed the parrot to McElroy who took a liking to the bird and offered to help transport him to Finley's home in the United States. Finley explained in the article:
"Later in London, I met Mr McElroy, who is purser of the Adriatic. I gave him the parrot and telling him the trick of the parrot imitating the tapping of my fingers, it was found that he would tap the wireless key on the Adriatic just as regularly and as precisely as he did the table taps. As a result of some experiments, the parrot was found quite competent to send wireless messages without the regular operator touching the key, the bird simply following each tap with a tap on the key. He was quite precise in his imitation of the dots and dashes, and I was highly gratified in getting a wireless message on the Cedric, which was sent 'Via McElroy's Parrot' as the messages stated."
The photo is on Velox photographic paper with handwritten notation "Hugh McElroy Purser Lost in Titanic April 14th 1912". Purser McElroy was last seen standing on the Boat Deck near the gymnasium, beside mail clerk William Logan Gwinn, his body was recovered #157 by the C.S. Mackay-Bennett. 6¾ins x 4¾ins.