The ship’s wheel once used to steer Titanic’s ‘little sister’ is about to return to Belfast.

Volunteers who have been raising money to restore SS Nomadic have tracked down what they believe to be her ship’s wheel and will be handing it over to the team responsible for restoring her in the next fortnight.

SS Nomadic is the last remaining White Star Line vessel and once ferried first class passengers onto the Titanic at Cherbourg on the mighty liner’s ill-fated maiden voyage.

The Nomadic went on to serve in the first and second world wars and also served many of the great transatlantic cruise liners in the following years, before she was transformed into a floating restaurant in the centre of Paris.

She was threatened with the scrapyard but was brought back to Belfast three years ago to become a central focus of the Titanic Quarter once she has been restored by the Nomadic Charitable Trust.

David Scott Beddard, chairman of the Nomadic Preservation Society, a team of volunteers supporting the tender’s restoration, said he was put in contact with the owner of the ship’s wheel, who lives in Brittany.

The wheel bears distinctive markings indicating it came from a White Star Line vessel.

“He was owed money for work he had done and the guy couldn’t pay him and he gave him the wheel,” he said.

“It comes with no concrete evidence or provenance but it’s too much of a coincidence.”

The wheel is the only item to date recovered from the ship’s superstructure which was removed years ago to allow it to pass under the bridges of the Seine River.