HISTORIC letters sent following the death of William Stead on the Titanic are to set to reach at least £4,000 in an online auction.

Two letters concerning a compensation claim for the widow of the former Northern Echo editor are part of a large collection of Titanic memorabilia which is up for sale.

Almost four years after the disaster on April 15, 1912, solicitors Norman Croom-Johnson wrote a two page letter to White Star Line, the owners of the Titanic.

The letter, dated January 5, 1916, asks the company for £130,000 in compensation on behalf of Emma Lucy Stead, the journalist’s widow, due to his death.

The second letter is from White Star Line to its solicitors Hill Dickinson requesting that they deal with the claim.

The letters are being sold online by RR Auction, in America.

Bobby Livingston, executive vice president of RR Auction, said: “The letters have been in a family’s possession for some time and it’s the first time they have been on sale.

"We have never seen anything like this before and it's about such a famous person.

“It is more than 100 years since the ship sank and people’s interest in the disaster is kept going by films, such as James Cameron’s, about the Titanic.

“We have some very passionate Titanic collectors and we expect quite a lot of interest in this sale which is only online.”

Stead became editor of The Northern Echo in 1871 aged just 22.

He was travelling to New York for a peace congress at the Carnegie Hall when the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage.

He is said to have helped women and children into lifeboats and was later seen clinging to a lifeboat, but his body was never found.

More than 1,500 people died in in the disaster, and more than a century on, there is a huge market for Titanic memorabilia.

The auction of the Stead letters runs until midnight on Wednesday, April 15. The estimate price is £4,000.

Details on the auction can be found online at rrauction.com/browse.cfm?SearchCrit=titanic