A packed community hall at St Mary’s church, Long Ditton, heard a talk from assistant curate the Rev Alison Baverstock about a passion… the Titanic.

The area has a bond with the doomed ship as Austin Partner, one of the 1,502 who perished in the freezing waters of the Atlantic on April 15 1912, lived in a semi in Ewell Road, close to the Red Lion Road junction. Unusually, his Victorian house had a large working organ built into one of the downstairs reception rooms.

The 40-year-old stockbroker was the equivalent of a frequent flyer, having already made 17 transatlantic returns on business before choosing to go on the Titanic’s maiden voyage.

The custom, in wars or disasters, was to bury victims near the scene. Recovered bodies that couldn’t be identified were buried at sea, the majority were laid to rest in three graveyards in Halifax, Nova Scotia, but 59 were returned by ship for home burials.

Which makes Austin Partner’s grave in St Mary’s churchyard unusual. The figure guarding it (carved in marble by a Kingston craftsman) is impressive. She is pictured throwing a wreath – a symbol of deaths at sea.

More than 1,000 people attended the funeral. There were 15 vehicles in the cortege, seven of them full of flowers. So many people visited the grave in the first few months that the turf around it had to be relaid three times.

Alison Baverstock became interested in all things Titanic after a uni friend framed a set of playing cards from the ship which had been pocketed by a relative who survived the sinking. “I’ve always been a bit of an anorak about the Titanic,” she said, adding that she and her husband were married on the anniversary of the Titanic striking the iceberg.