SS Princess Alice, formerly PS Bute, was a British passenger paddle steamer that sank on 3 September 1878 after a collision with the collier on the River Thames. Between 600 and 700 people died, all from Princess Alice, the greatest loss of life of any British inland waterway shipping accident. No passenger list or headcount was made, so the exact figure of deaths has never been known.
Built in Greenock, Scotland, in 1865, Princess Alice was employed for two years in Scotland before being purchased by the Waterman's Steam Packet Co to carry passengers on the Thames. By 1878 she was owned by the London Steamboat Co and was captained by William R. H. Grinstead; the ship carried passengers on a stopping service from Swan Pier, near London Bridge, downstream to Sheerness, Kent, and back. On her homeward journey, at an hour after sunset on 3 September 1878, she passed Tripcock Point and entered Gallions Reach. She took the wrong sailing line and was hit by Bywell Castle; the point of the collision was the area of the Thames where of London's raw sewage had just been released. Princess Alice broke into three parts and sank quickly; her passengers drowned in the heavily polluted waters.
Grinstead died in the incident, so the subsequent investigations never established which course he thought he was supposed to take. The jury in the coroner's inquest considered both vessels at fault, but more blame was put on Bywell Castle; the inquiry run by the Board of Trade found that Princess Alice had not followed the correct path and her captain was culpable. In the aftermath of the sinking, changes were made to the release and treatment of sewage, and how it was transported to, and released into, the sea. The Marine Police Force—the branch of the Metropolitan Police that had responsibility for policing the Thames—were provided with steam launches, after the rowing boats used up to that point had proved insufficient for the rescue. Five years after the collision Bywell Castle sank in the Bay of Biscay with the loss of all forty crew.
Background SS Princess Alice
Caird & Company of Greenock, Scotland, launched the passenger paddle steamer Bute on 29 March 1865. She entered service on 1 July 1865. The ship was long and at the beam, and measured 432 gross registered tons. Bute had been built for the Wemyss Bay Railway Company, for whom she carried passengers between Wemyss Bay and Rothesay. In 1867 she was sold to the Waterman's Steam Packet Co. to travel on the River Thames; the company renamed the vessel Princess Alice, after Queen Victoria's third child. In 1870 she was sold to the Woolwich Steam Packet Company and was operated as an excursion steamer; the company later changed its name to the London Steamboat Company. In 1873 the ship carried Naser al-Din Shah Qajar, the Shah of Persia, up the Thames to Greenwich, and became known to many locals as "The Shah's boat".
When Princess Alice was acquired by the Woolwich Steam Packet Company, the company made several alterations to the ship, including the installation of new boilers and making the five bulkheads watertight. The vessel had been inspected and was passed as safe by the Board of Trade. In 1878 another survey by the Board of Trade allowed the ship to carry a maximum of 936 passengers between London and Gravesend in calm water.
SS Bywell Castle The collier was built in Newcastle in 1869 and was owned by Messrs Hall of Newcastle. Her gross registered tonnage was 1376, she was long and at the beam; her depth of hold was . The master was Captain Thomas Harrison.
3 September 1878
On 3 September 1878 Princess Alice was making what was billed as a "Moonlight Trip" from Swan Pier, near London Bridge, downstream to Sheerness, Kent, and back. During the journey she called at Blackwall, North Woolwich and Rosherville Gardens; many of the Londoners on board were travelling to Rosherville to visit the pleasure gardens that had been built 40 years before. As the London Steamboat Co. owned several ships, passengers could use their tickets interchangeably on the day, stopping off to travel on or back on different vessels if they wanted; for tickets from Swan Pier to Rosherville, the cost was two shillings.
Princess Alice left Rosherville at about 6:30 pm on her return to Swan Pier; she was carrying close to her full capacity of passengers, although no lists were kept, and the exact number of people on board is unknown. The master of Princess Alice, 47-year-old Captain William Grinstead, allowed his helmsman to stay at Gravesend, and replaced him with a seaman named John Eyers. Eyers had little experience of the Thames, or of helming a craft such as Princess Alice. Between 7:20 pm and 7:40 pm, Princess Alice had passed Tripcock Point, entered Gallions Reach and come within sight of the North Woolwich Pier—where many passengers were to disembark—when Bywell Castle was sighted. Bywell Castle usually carried coal to Africa, but had just been repainted at a dry dock. She was due to sail to Newcastle to pick up coal bound for Alexandria, Egypt. Harrison was unfamiliar with the conditions, so employed Christopher Dix, an experienced Thames river pilot, although he was not obliged to do so. As Bywell Castle had a raised forecastle, Dix did not have a clear view in front of him, so a seaman was placed on lookout.
On leaving Millwall, Bywell Castle proceeded downriver at . She kept roughly to the middle of the river, except where other craft were in her way. Approaching Gallions Reach, Dix saw Princess Alices red port light approaching on a course to pass starboard of them. Grinstead, travelling up the river against the tide, followed the normal watermen's practice of seeking the slack water on the south side of the river. He altered the ship's course, bringing her into the path of Bywell Castle. Seeing the imminent collision, Grinstead shouted to the larger vessel "Where are you coming to! Good God! Where are you coming to!" Although Dix tried to manoeuvre his vessel out of a collision course, and ordered the engines to be put into "reverse full speed", it was too late. Princess Alice was struck on the starboard side just in front of the paddle box at an angle of 13 degrees; she split in two and sank within four minutes—her boilers separating from the structure as it sank.
The crew of Bywell Castle dropped ropes from their deck for the passengers of Princess Alice to climb; they also threw anything that would float into the water for people to hold. Other crew from Bywell Castle launched their lifeboat and rescued 14 people, and crews from boats moored nearby did the same. Residents from both banks of the Thames, particularly the boatmen of local factories, launched vessels to rescue who they could. Many of the passengers from Princess Alice were unable to swim; the long heavy dresses worn by women also hindered their efforts to stay afloat. Princess Alices sister ship, Duke of Teck, was steaming ten minutes behind her; she arrived too late to rescue anyone left in the water. Only two people who had been below decks or in the saloon survived the collision; a diver who examined the saloon reported that the passengers were jammed together in the doorways, mostly still upright.
About 130 people were rescued from the collision, but several died later from ingesting the water. Princess Alice sank at the point where London's sewage pumping stations were sited. The twice-daily release of of raw sewage from the sewer outfalls Abbey Mills, at Barking, and the Crossness Pumping Station had occurred one hour before the collision. In a letter to The Times shortly after the collision, a chemist described the outflow as:
Two continuous columns of decomposed fermenting sewage, hissing like soda-water with baneful gases, so black that the water is stained for miles and discharging a corrupt charnel-house odour, that will be remembered by all ... as being particularly depressing and sickening.
The water was also polluted by the untreated output from Beckton Gas Works, and several local chemical factories. Adding to the foulness of the water, a fire in Thames Street earlier that day had resulted in oil and petroleum entering the river.
Bywell Castle moored at Deptford to await the action of the authorities and the inquest. That night Harrison and Belding, the first mate, wrote the ship's log to describe the event:
At 6:30 left the West Dock, Millwall, in charge of Mr Dicks, pilot; proceeding slowly, the master and pilot being on the upper bridge ... Light air and weather little hazy. At 7:45 pm proceeding at half speed down Gallions Reach. Being about centre of the Reach, observed an excursion steamer coming up Barking Reach, showing her red and masthead lights, when we ported our helm to keep over towards Tripcock Point. As the vessel neared, observed that the other steamer had ported, and immediately afterwards saw that she had starboarded and was trying to cross our bows, showing her green light close under the port bow. Seeing collision inevitable, stopped our engines and reversed full speed, when the two vessels collided, the bow of Bywell Castle cutting into the other steamer, which was crowded with passengers, with a dreadful crash. Took immediate means for saving life by hauling up over the bows several men of the passengers, throwing rope's-ends over all round the ship, throwing over four lifebuoys, a hold ladder and several planks, and getting out three boats, keeping the whistle blowing loudly all the time for assistance, which was rendered by several boats from shore and a boat from a passing steamer. The excursion steamer, which turned out to be Princess Alice, turning over and sinking under the bows. Succeeded in rescuing a great many passengers and anchored for the night. About 8:30 pm the steamer Duke of Teck came alongside and took off such passengers as had not been taken on shore in the boats.
Aftermath
Recovery of the dead
News of the sinking was telegraphed back to the centre of London, and soon filtered through to those waiting at Swan Pier for the steamer's return. Relatives made their way to the London Steamboat offices near Blackfriars to wait for more news; many took the train from London Bridge to Woolwich. The crowds grew during the night and into the following day, as both relatives and sightseers travelled to Woolwich; additional police were drafted in to help control the crowds, and deal with the remains that were being landed. Reports came in of corpses being washed up as far upstream as Limehouse and down to Erith. When bodies were landed, they were stored locally for identification, rather than centrally, although most ended up at Woolwich Dockyard. Relatives had to travel between several locations on both sides of the Thames to search for missing family members. Local watermen were hired for £2 a day to search for bodies; they were paid a minimum of five shillings for each one they recovered, which sometimes led to fights over the corpses. One of those picked up was that of Grinstead, Princess Alices captain.
Because of the pollution from the sewage and local industrial output, the bodies from the Thames were covered with slime, which was found difficult to clean off; the corpses began to rot at a faster pace than normal, and many of the corpses were unusually bloated. Victims' clothing also began to rot quickly and was discoloured after immersion in the polluted water. Sixteen of those who survived died within two weeks, and several others were ill.
Inquest