A DIVER has donated a rare porthole from the wreck of Warrington's Titanic' to the museum.

Stuart recovered it from the twisted mass of the Tayleur off the coast of Ireland shortly after it was discovered in 1970.

It had been sitting in his garage until he saw plates from the ship on the TV show Flog It and got in contact with Warrington Museum and Art Gallery.

The Tayleur was acclaimed as the largest, and safest, iron ship ever built when it was launched by White Star Liners - which would later launch the Titanic.

She was built at Bank Quay and the Warrington Guardian reported on it at the time.

But she was wrecked during a storm in Dublin Bay on January 21, 1854, on her maiden voyage to Melbourne, Australia, and 426 of the 660 passengers were killed.

Janice Heyes, principal museum manager, said: "Contemporary reaction can only be compared with the shockwaves which followed the loss of The Titanic.

"The owners were held largely to blame, principally for failing to realise that the Tayleur's iron hull would cause misleading compass readings which would take the ship aground."

The museum was delighted to get the porthole from the ship. While it has items of cargo from the wreck, this is the first time it has a piece of the ship.

Portholes were very expensive at the time and drawings show only four were fitted to each side.

Diver Stuart White, now aged 65, a mechanic from Northwich, said: "The wreck was only in about 40ft of water.

"It just looked like a scrap yard, a mangled mess of girders, plates and metal. When it's in the shallows, the currents really smash wrecks to bits. It had had 116 years of storms.

"The cargo included rows and rows of plates with the packing straw still between them - and rows and rows of marble gravestone."