Pocket Watch from Deadly Shipwreck Returns Home 165 Years Later: ‘Truly a Once-in-a-Lifetime Discovery’

Belonging to the late British journalist and politician Herbert Ingram, the historic item was recovered from the bottom of Lake Michigan

By Brian Anthony Hernandez  Published on May 31, 2025

A pocket watch belonging to the late British journalist and politician Herbert Ingram is now on display at the Boston Guildhall museum in the U.K. — 165 years after it was lost

The watch sank in Lake Michigan with the Lady Elgin in 1860

“This find is truly a once-in-a-lifetime discovery,” Boston Guildhall museum’s Luke Skerritt said in a statement

After sinking to the bottom of Lake Michigan in 1860 — along with the steamship Lady Elgin — Herbert Ingram’s pocket watch is back home.

The historic timepiece returned to Boston, Lincolnshire, in the U.K. this month, 165 years after it was lost when the Lady Elgin sank during a brutal storm after it collided with a schooner in the dark of night.

The watch belonged to Ingram, a British journalist and politician who died with his son when the ship sank. It was found in the lake in 1992, but was just recently sent back to the Boston Guildhall museum, near where the Ingrams had lived, according to local online outlet LincolnshireWorld.

The long-lost item is described as a 16-carat gold pocket watch that experts say stayed in relatively good condition due to the cold, low-oxygen environment of the lake preventing any major corrosion.

Hebert Ingram (1811-1860) trained as an apprentice printer before establishing a printing business in Nottingham in 1833. ad a readership of around 200,000. In 1856 Ingram became MP for Boston. The portrait was published in commemoration after he drowned in Lake Michigan in 1860 along with his son, also named Herbert.

Thirty-two years after divers discovered the watch, they asked archaeologist Valerie van Heest in 2024 to find a way to display it in an exhibition.

“I very quickly came to the realization it doesn’t belong in America,” van Heest, who purchased the watch and then donated it to the Boston Guildhall museum, told the BBC. “It belongs in Boston where Herbert Ingram was from, where a statue of him still stands.”

“To see a watch which belonged to the man who stands in Boston’s town square,” van Heest continued to the BBC, “I think this is going to draw people in, to wonder, ‘Who was this man?’

”Van Heest, who is the author of Lost on the Lady Elgin, also described the historical importance of the long-lost pocket watch’s return home.

“So many people lost their lives within minutes of hitting the water,” van Heest told Fox 17, noting that the Boston Guildhall museum was planning a Lady Elgin exhibit when she got her hands on the pocket watch. “They didn’t have any physical artifacts, and here I was offering not only an artifact but Herbert Ingram’s personal watch.”