Three Good Questions (and some answers) about the sinking of the SS Princess Alice on the Thames in 1878

Last month I invited you to imagine that while doing some historical research you’d found a piece in the Illustrated London News from 7th September 1878 about a collision between two vessels on the Thames. What could you learn from it? How many research rabbit holes would it lead you down? In what new directions might it take your writing? And, if you interrogated the words and image closely, what Three Good Questions would you want answers to first?

You can refer back to the transcript here.

My own Three Good Questions to get things started were:

1. Why did the collision happen (was it unavoidable)?
2. How accurately does the artist’s impression match witness testimony?
3. What became of the Bywell Castle?

 
To which my newsletter subscribers and social media followers added the following:

4. If it was a bright summer’s day, why didn’t the ships see one another?
5. Were the women on board more likely to perish, due to their attire?
6. Was it possible to gauge the exact number of those who had died?
7. How long did it take for the majority of the casualties to be recovered from the Thames?
8. Did the water quality in the Thames result in any further casualties amongst the survivors of the day?
9. Was there an inquest into the disaster? If so, did the outcome(s) result in any charges or changes?
10. Apart from the magnitude of the disaster, was this type of collision a rare occurrence on the Thames?

Setting the Scene

The SS Princess Alice was a 251-ton, iron-hulled paddle steamer built in 1865. She was owned by the London Steam-Boat Company, which operated her as a pleasure craft taking day-trippers and holiday-makers up and down the Thames. She was 219 feet (67m) long, 20 feet (6m) wide and 8 feet (2.5m) deep.

On Tuesday, 3rd September 1878 the Princess Alice was making a “Moonlight Trip” from Swan Pier, near London Bridge, downstream to Sheerness on the north Kent coast, and back. During the journey she called at Blackwall, North Woolwich and Rosherville Gardens. Passengers could use their tickets interchangeably on the day, stopping off to travel on or back on different vessels. Return tickets from Swan Pier to Rosherville cost only two shillings. After departing Rosherville at around 6.30pm on the way back to Swan Pier, the helmsman was given permission to remain at Gravesend by William Grinstead, the 47-year-old captain. He was replaced by John Eyers who had little experience of the Thames, or of helming a craft such as the Princess Alice. ⁽¹⁾

The Princess Alice (Illustrated London News, 14th September 1878)

Also iron-hulled, but with a screw propeller and weighing in at 1,376 tons, the SS Bywell Castle was a steam cargo ship built in 1870 and owned by Hall Brothers of Newcastle and London. She was 254 feet (77.5m) long, 32 feet (10m) wide, just under 20 feet (6m) deep, and had spent most of her career carrying coal to Egypt and India and bringing cotton and other goods back to England.

On the day of the disaster the Bywell Castle was embarking for Newcastle to pick up a cargo of coal, having just been repainted in dry dock. Her captain, Thomas Harrison, chose to employ an experienced Thames river pilot called Christopher Dix and, because the vessel had a raised forecastle, a seaman was placed on lookout. ⁽²⁾

The Bywell Castle (Illustrated London News, 14th September 1878)

A Tragedy of Human Errors

In the days and weeks that followed, the press dedicated many column inches to trying to unpick the precise chain of events that resulted in what is still the greatest loss of life of any British inland waterway shipping accident.

A reporter for The Morning Post, writing only hours after the accident, cut to the heart of why an avoidable collision became inevitable: “Before the boats struck there were cries from one to the other to keep out of the way, but, as usual in such cases, the accident is probably due to a misunderstanding, the one mis-interpreting the intentions of the other. All the rules of sailing are cast to the winds in the moment of peril, each taking the wrong course to avoid each other’s blunder, and, like the meeting of two embarrassed pedestrians on the foot-path, rushing into each other’s bosoms.”

Survivor and other eye-witness testimony was a confusion of corroboration and contradiction regarding the positions of both vessels on the river and the changes of direction made by their crews. The bare bones of the story are as follows:

• The Princess Alice was steaming westward at around four knots against the ebb tide
• The Bywell Castle was steaming eastward also at around four knots, but with the tide (estimated by the Illustrated London News to make her actual speed more like seven or eight knots)
• At around 7.30pm (an hour after sunset) the Princess Alice passed Tripcock Point and maintained a course on the southern side of the river in order to take advantage of slack water (some witnesses claimed she was mid-channel going around the Point)
• At this stage the two vessels were about a mile apart and had first sight of each other
• The Bywell Castle was maintaining a mid-channel course
• As the vessels closed on each other, neither crew was clear about which way the other was heading and a number of turns to port (left) and starboard (right) were made
• The Bywell Castle collided with the starboard side of the Princess Alice at about 7.40pm, splitting the craft in two and sinking her within just a few minutes

Map showing the location on the Thames of the collision between the Bywell Castle and the Princess Alice (Illustrated London News, 14th September 1878)

National Maritime Museum (London) model of the Princess Alice disaster (image courtesy of the BBC)

Based on the known dimensions of the two vessels and the model shown above, although the artist’s impression published on 14th September 1878 in the Illustrated London News was inevitably somewhat exaggerated, the proportions of the Bywell Castle compared to the Princess Alice aren’t too far off the mark. The depiction of the crowded upper decks is also in keeping with eye-witness reports.

Aftermath and Investigations

In addition to the common practice of seeking slack water on the inside bend of a river (in this case the south side), the rule that two ships heading towards each other should pass on the port side (the waterway equivalent of driving on the left) was well-known and had been formalised six years earlier in Rule 29, Section (d) of the Board of Trade Regulations and the Regulations of the Thames Conservancy Board, 1872. ⁽³⁾

In its 7th September 1878 editorial (four days after the event) the Illustrated London News asked, “Who is accountable for this awful waste of life?” before appearing to jump, with poorly informed haste, to the supposition that blame lay with the captain and crew of the Princess Alice. It suggested that the, “comparatively narrow stream like that of the Thames in the vicinity of London, crowded with shipping seeking ingress and egress day and night, must make it a delicate and anxious task to steer a pleasure-steamer full of passengers clear of dangerous collision with other craft, and yet the infrequency of catastrophes similar to that of the Princess Alice is evidence that, in proper hands, the feat may be usually accomplished with safety.”

Not such a narrow stream. Thames Conservancy tug (centre of image) directly over the wreck. One of the funnels from the Princess Alice on barge (right of image) (Illustrated London News, 14th September 1878)

Other press reports the same day mention that the disaster occurred at almost exactly the same spot on the river where, “the fearful collision took place between the Mites and the Wentworth some ten years ago.” I’ve yet to track down any information about that incident, but while looking it quickly became obvious that collisions and sinkings on the Thames were relatively common (albeit not with the same scale of loss as the Princess Alice.) For instance, in July 1868 alone there was a collision between the brigantine Hero of Whitstable and the barge Holborough of Rochester at Long Reach, and the Ada of Whitby sunk after collision with the SS Adria.

Although it was no longer a bright summer’s day, there is no doubt in any of the witness testimony that the two vessels could see each other and their respective green (starboard) and red (port) lights. The Illustrated London News of 14th September 1878 mentions there being “full moonlight”, although that evening the moon was only just reaching its first quarter. One of the surviving Princess Alice passengers, Henry Reed, was quoted in the same edition of the paper as saying, “it was anything but dark. You might not have been able to read small print, but you could distinctly see the picture on a photograph.”

A survey conducted by the Board of Trade earlier that year concluded that the Princess Alice was allowed to carry a maximum of 936 passengers between London and Gravesend in calm water. ⁽⁴⁾

George Haynes, who’d been a passenger on the aft deck of the Princess Alice, estimated that there were about 800 people on board, including the children. Other estimates vary, but the actual figure, including crew, may have been as high as 950. Younger children weren’t required to have a ticket and no list or tally of passengers was kept.

Lists of survivors and the missing were published in the press in the days immediately following the disaster. On 5th September in The Times, for example, 43 women and girls and 44 men and boys were listed as having been saved. Some had managed to swim to the river bank, while many others clung to ropes and floating debris until pulled aboard the Bywell Castle or other nearby vessels.

Recovering bodies from the wreck of the Princess Alice (Illustrated London News, 14th September 1878)

The 14th September 1878 Illustrated London News reported that the, “majority seem to be middle-class and working-class people of the London suburbs, Camden Town, Brixton, and other districts remote from the Thames contributing a great number. There are several instances in which parties of school children, with their teachers, or members of a Bible Class, had been taken out for a holiday trip on the river. Two thirds at least of the whole number are women and children.”

George Haynes was quoted in the same edition saying that earlier in the evening, near Grays, the Princess Alice, “nearly collided with a large brig, and a serious accident was only averted by our captain reversing the [paddle] wheels full on.”

His statement could be read as either a criticism of William Grinstead’s captaincy or admiration for his quick thinking. A week later the Illustrated London News reported that all, “who knew Captain Grinstead speak in high terms both of his character and his skill.” The paper also published an extract from a letter written by Captain Verney Lovett Cameron of the Royal Navy (the first European to cross equatorial Africa from sea to sea) in which he bears, “testimony to his skill and unremitting carefulness… and knowledge of how to handle a long, unhandy vessel were beyond all praise.”

Captain William Grinstead of the Princess Alice (Illustrated London News, 21st September 1878)

On 21st September 1878 The Times reported that 640 bodies had been found and 16 out of the 183 people rescued had subsequently died. The exact number of victims whose remains were not found (between 80 and 130 were estimated) or who died later as a result of being in the river was never established.

On the same day the Illustrated London News pointed out that several cases were, “known in which persons got out of the water alive, but died from exhaustion: one is that of a young American lady, Miss Ella Hambury, who swam two miles, was picked up by a boat, and survived a week, but died at last at her brother’s house at Mildmay Park, Islington. Her intended husband, Mr. Harrison was drowned in the Princess Alice.” The Times reported the findings of an inquest into Ella Hambury’s death, which concluded the 20-year-old died from, “congestion of the lungs and shock from immersion in the river Thames…”

The Weekly Dispatch on Sunday, 20th October 1878, highlighted the, “supposition that the foul state of the Thames at the scene of the Princess Alice disaster contributed in a measure to its fatal consequences was again discussed at the meeting of the Plumstead District Board,” on the previous Thursday, and that it, “had been asserted at the inquest that the water [polluted by the discharge of raw metropolitan sewage from the Barking and Crossness outfalls] was poisonous, the taste and smell being impossible to describe…”

The disaster had occurred at a point on the Thames close to where London’s sewage pumping stations were sited. The twice-daily release of 75 million imperial gallons (340,000 m3) of raw sewage from the sewer outfalls at Barking and Crossness had occurred an hour before the collision. The water was also polluted by the untreated output from Beckton Gas Works, opposite the collision site on the north bank, 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. ⁽⁵⁾

Burial of the unknown dead at Woolwich Cemetery, on the south side of Plumstead Common, East Wickham, on Monday 16th September 1878 (Illustrated London News, 21st September 1878)

The unidentified (and in some cases unidentifiable) bodies of 47 women, 18 men, and 18 children were buried in a mass grave in Woolwich on 16th September 1878. The high proportion of adult female mortality is telling. Many of the passengers had become trapped below deck when the Princess Alice sank and it is likely that women (especially those with children) made up the majority of that group. Secondly, for those passengers trying to stay afloat on the surface (fighting currents and sometimes each other), the restrictive and heavy, multi-layered clothing worn by women at that time inevitably put them at a significant disadvantage.

Coroner’s inquest into the Princess Alice disaster at Woolwich Town Hall (Illustrated London News, 21st September 1878)

The coroner for West Kent, Charles J. Carttar, opened an inquest into the disaster on 4th September 1878 at Woolwich Town Hall. Its jury reached a verdict on 4th November 1878, the main points of which were that:

• the Bywell Castle did not take the necessary precaution of easing, stopping and reversing her engines in time
• the Princess Alice contributed to the collision by not stopping and going astern
• all collisions might in future be avoided if proper and stringent rules and regulations were laid down for all steam navigation on the River Thames

The inquest also concluded that, while the Princess Alice was seaworthy, she was not properly and sufficiently manned, she was carrying more passengers than was prudent, and the means of saving life onboard were insufficient for a vessel of her class. ⁽⁶⁾

A separate inquiry by the Board of Trade had been initially scheduled to begin on 24th September 1878, but was postponed until the coroner’s inquest had made progress. It eventually opened at the Courthouse on East India Road in Poplar on the morning of Monday 14th October 1878 and continued until 6th November 1878 (which meant that for a month the two inquiries were running simultaneously and calling the same witnesses.)

It came to different conclusions than the coroner’s inquest, eventually laying the blame for the disaster on the Princess Alice (for not adhering to the port-side passing regulation) and stating that the Bywell Castle could not avoid the collision. Whether or not the Board of Trade was biased in favour of the cargo industry is a matter of speculation.

Later in 1878 the London Steam-Boat Company sued Hall Brothers for £20,000 compensation and were counter-sued for £2,000. The fortnight-long case was heard in the High Court of Justice, where it was judged that both vessels were to blame for the collision. ⁽⁷⁾

Legacy

Following the Princess Alice disaster, improvements were made to sewage treatment at the Barking and Crossness stations, and six sludge boats were brought into service from 1887 to ship effluent into the North Sea for dumping (a practice which continued until December 1998.) The impractical rowing boats of the Marine Police Force were replaced by steam launches, and The Royal Albert Dock opened in 1880, which helped to separate heavy cargo traffic from smaller vessels on the Thames. These changes, together with the global adoption of emergency signalling lights on ships and boats, helped to avoid future tragedies. ⁽⁸⁾

As for the Bywell Castle, she continued her cargo-carrying career until February 1883, when she was reported missing while returning to England from Egypt overladen with beans and cotton seed. She was last sighted on 29th January off Cape Corvoeiro, Portugal, and was assumed to have foundered in the Bay of Biscay. ⁽⁹⁾

If you know or discover any more about any of the people and events mentioned in this post, or if you’d like to suggest further questions, please do tell me via the comments below.

Sources:
1. Sinking of SS Princess Alice, Wikipedia (with references)
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid.
8. Ibid.
9. SS Bywell Castle (1869), Wikipedia (with references)