London, 1878.

The height of the Victorian age.

The city’s rising middle class work long hours and they yearn for an escape from the dreary cobblestone streets.

A passenger steamer offers them an exciting escape.

The promise of a day’s voyage down river to Kent.

She’s a popular little vessel, and as she makes her way up river for the eenth time, people are relaxed and cheerful after a day spent picnicking in the sun.

Then there comes a sudden horrifying sight.

The bow of a big ship which plunges into their own.

People are thrown into the river.

But it’s not water they plunge into.

It’s sewage.

Industrial waste, animal carcasses, human refuse.

It’s all mixed into a sthing, slimy, hissing black ooze that coats the temp’s surface and chokes the life out of the people who call out for help.

Ladies and gentlemen, I’m your friend Mike Brady from Ocean Liner Designs, and this is the terrifying true story of the ship that sank in sewage, the Princess Alice.

It was Tuesday, September 3rd, 1878, and the paddle steamer, Princess Alice, was chugging her way up the Tempame’s River.

The ship was a small excursion vessel about 220 ft long and 432 gross registered tons.

She was Scottishbuilt, originally launched in 1865 and named But she had been bought early on for operations on the river Tempames.

She was renamed Princess Alice after Queen Victoria’s daughter and by 1878 was a familiar site at ports along the river from London.

She was licensed for 930 odd passengers and would operate regular sailings from near London Bridge down the temps to sheer Kent and back with three stops along the way.

This was a popular route for sightseers because of the public Rasherville Gardens now long gone but a popular picnicking spot which had been made out of a chalk pit.

September 3rd was a bright, sunny day, so it was busier than normal when the Princess Alice departed Swan Pier in her morning outbound trip, skipped by Captain William Ginstead.

The day passed without incident with passengers getting on and off at every call.

Because Princess Alice’s operators, the London Steamboat Company, owned a number of ships, it was usual for day trippers to disembark one vessel, spend some time sightseeing, and then use their same ticket to hop aboard the next boat outbound or to return as they saw fit.

Not unlike a modern-day water-based bus.

They could just come and go as they pleased.

After a day of plugging her way downstream, Princess Alice landed at Sheerus, the end of the line, and prepared for the return voyage.

Aboard her were whole families who’d enjoyed the day away.

Hundreds of children crammed the railings to watch as the crew cast off the lines that held Princess Alice to the dock.

However, a few miles upstream, something was happening that would have dire consequences for all those hundreds of people on board.

19th century London was a grimy, bleak place, as anybody familiar with the works of Charles Dickens can agree.

It was the height of the industrial revolution.

The city was famous for its pea supers when the air became thick with soot and smog, often killing hundreds and even thousands.

Every day, vast factory chimneys poured thick black coal smoke into the air.

The slaughter houses butchered animals on an unprecedented scale, and all the byproduct of this industrial activity were washed straight into the gutters and the sewers of London.

The London sewer system until the 19th century had been a fairly basic affair, and sanitation was a real issue.

The technological change had come in the shape of enormous pumping stations armed with compound steam engines which on a daily basis would discharge millions of gallons of foul black sewage right into the temps.

As Princess Alice was preparing to leave, this is exactly what happened.

Approximately 75 million imperial gallons of this toxic soup was pumped out to float downstream and eventually out into the sea.

The Princess Alice would be sailing straight through it.

The steamer left for home at about 6:30 that night as the sun was setting.

This voyage had been built as a moonlight trip so passengers could sail out for sightseeing all day and rely on safe passage home after dusk.

Her decks were crowded with passengers, but because of the loose nature of the company’s schedule, no lists were kept of those who’d embarked.

A band played on board and they struck up the popular tune Nancy Lee.

There was a kind of festive attitude as darkness enveloped the ship and her lights blazed.

By 7:30 p.

m.

, Princess Alice was on the home stretch and her paddles were now churning through the thick black sewage as she passed Cross Pumping Station.

But then, when she was just off Wulitch, a ship was spotted ahead.

What happened next would seal the fate of hundreds of people.

Out of the darkness loomed a jack staff, two anchors, and finally an entire ship’s bow cutting through the water at about 5 knots.

In a panic, Captain Ginstead shouted at the mystery ship, “Where are you coming to? Good God, where are you coming to?” But it was too late for any evasive action.

The huge mystery ship slammed straight into Princess Alice on the starboard side, just forward of her paddle box, and the smaller ship, her deck still lined with passengers, broke in half.

I was on the saloon deck aft, said Mr.

Herbert Wiler.

But looking ahead, I heard a shouting, and then I saw the huge hull of a steamer coming upon us, towering high above our saloon.

I ran down the companion ladder and got to the extreme after part of the boat.

I took off my boots, ready to dive.

The passengers were frantic, and I tried to pacify some of them, for I did not think we should sink, and I think the people got a little quieter.

But in 3 or 4 minutes, our vessel parted in the middle, and she seemed to double up.

The mystery ship was a substantial collier named Bwwell Castle.

Her captain, Thomas Harrison, was shocked at the speed with which Princess Alice came apart.

Our ship, he said, is perfectly uninjured.

A little paint is scratched off.

That is all.

The other vessel was just like an eggshell.

She broke right up when touched.

She was totally unfit for her business.

On Princess Alice, a tragic scene was playing out.

Passenger Henry Reed recalled, “My wife, who had not lost her self-possession, said,”Do not leave me.

” I took her hands to keep her by me.

I looked up at the vessel close upon us, but could see no persons in her forpart, nor could I hear any cries from her, but her great height above us would probably prevent our doing so.

The collision must have occurred at that moment, for although there was no crash, we felt the Princess Alice tremble under us, a kind of strong shivering motion.

We turned, looking after, seeking for means of safety, and I observed the captain was no longer on the paddle box.

I never saw him again.

Princess Alice had been modified so that she had five watertight compartments, but these were immediately rendered useless, and hundreds of her occupants were hurled into the brackish water as the ship sank.

Although, it wasn’t exactly water, was it? Instead, Princess Alice’s passengers found themselves neck deep in a thick soup of human sewage, dead animals, toxic and industrial waste.

and soiled water flushed from slaughterhouses, factories, and mills.

A chemist later described this 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 charl odor that will be remembered by all as being particularly depressing and sickening.

This was an era where few could swim.

And even then, the restrictive, heavywoolened clothes would become waterlogged and weigh their wearer down.

Sure enough, as hundreds of people slid into the tempames as the ship sank, they sank with her while they struggled for air at the surface before succumbing and being dragged under and into the toxic filth.

It was over in minutes.

As the crew of Bwill Castle looked on in horror, hundreds of people were drowning.

They rushed to throw ropes and anything that would float down into the water, including life boys, ladders, and planks.

Without any apparent shock, recall Henry Reed, we found ourselves, my wife and I, still holding together in the water and rose again.

We sank again, I believe, drawn down by the suction of the Princess Alice.

When we rose, my wife was black in the face and nearly insensible.

I could not swim and could scarcely hold my wife up.

She told me to keep quiet and to hold up.

A plank was close by us and going past I seized it and holding on to it, it carried us right behind the vessel which had come into collision with us.

The Princess Alice must then have been behind us.

All around were people struggling in the water, screaming and calling to the men whom we could then see looking over the bullwalks of the other vessel.

A tract published after the sinking described it like this.

The scene which followed defies description, for death has seldom assumed a more appalling shape.

The river resounded with wild shrieks of human agony, and fathers, mothers, lovers, and little children were speedily engulfed in the waters of death.

Survivors have said, and they may be readily believed, that were they to live a hundred years, they would never forget the maddening excitement which followed the vessel being struck nearly in halves.

And when hundreds were seen struggling for rescue and grasping at anything, however frail, that seemed to promise some faint chance of escape.

For at least a hundred yards, the river was full of drowning passengers screaming madly for help.

And then came the silence, which was more awful even than the wildest shrieking, for it told that all was over.

Princess Alice sank in only 18 ft of water, but it had happened in something like 5 minutes.

For her part, Bw Castle’s crew began hurling life rings into the river and lowering their own boats to haul people out.

But for many, it was simply too late.

Those that made it out onto the river’s surface were the lucky ones in many ways.

Most were still trapped inside the little ship as she dropped like a stone.

10 minutes behind Princess Alice was her sister, the Duke of Tech, which arrived to help with the rescue.

But it was all finished.

Only 130 people were hauled to safety, and some 600 to 700 had died and floated lifelessly in the tempames mixed in with garbage and toxic sludge.

Captain Ginstead was among the lost.

His valuable testimony and his account of what had happened would never be heard.

Recovering the lost became a top priority and local watermen were offered five shillings for each recovered corpse which often resulted in fights over bodies.

The superintendent of the London Steamboat Company, Mr.

Wrench Towers, organized parties and patrols to scour the riverbanks for the dead, even though he had lost his own wife and four children.

The scene was hellish.

The black sewage covered the victims in a thick oily ooze that was nearly impossible to remove and made identification difficult.

Over the next few days, the high bacterial content of the water had horrific consequences as the Princess Alice’s former passengers began to bloat and decompose at a much faster rate.

Bodies began washing up miles away downstream, so distraught families had to travel back and forth searching for lost loved ones.

Only two people who had been below decks survived, and divers on the wreck found passageways and stairwells crammed with the dead, who tried to rush up and out of the doomed ship.

The water was so filthy and disgusting that 16 people died within 2 weeks of the disaster, having only ingested some of it, and dozens more were seriously ill.

In all, some 640 bodies were eventually recovered, but it’s thought that many more were lost.

At the London Steamboat Company headquarters, an anxious crowd gathered for news, but it was slow in coming.

Many headed for the temporary morg to look for relatives instead.

A black museum has been formed at the town hall Woolitch, reported the London Illustrated News, consisting of various articles of male and female apparel in an adjoining room with the 28 corpses, 12 of which had been covered with white sheeting to signify that they had been identified.

The others lay in various attitudes, but all with the left leg bent at the knee, and nearly all with the left hand thrown forward.

The faces were composed, but much discolored.

A fair-haired woman had a gold watch and chain and locket laid on her breast.

Plans were made to recover the ship, and just 4 days after the disaster on the 7th, her bow section was raised and beached.

Ironically, as the section was being towed ashore, the Bible castle just happened to be steaming past.

The stern was also recovered and photographs show both sections beached on the banks of the tempames.

A subsequent lawsuit after the Princess Alice’s operators tried to sue those of Bwill Castle found that both ships were at fault, but the board of trade had different ideas that the Princess Alice’s crew had not followed the rules of the right of way.

It’s probable, reported the Illustrated London News, that the intention of the commanders of both vessels, when they caught sight of each other approaching in opposite directions, was to pass on the south side of the channel, as near as they could to the Woolitch Marsh shore, each supposeding that the other was about to pass along the north side.

With this view, the helm onboard the Bwill Castle was put on the port side, or to the left hand, causing the vessel’s head to turn to the starboard, that is to say, to her right hand side.

At the same time, the princess Alice put her helm to starboard and thereby turned her head to the port or left hand side instead of crossing over as the bywall castle had expected she would do to the north side of the river.

The princess Alice in fact continued to follow the bend of the south bank while the Bwall Castle made for the point just below.

The consequence was that the Bwwell castle ran into the starboard side of the Princess Alice, striking her just forward of the paddle box and crushing her frail side like an eggshell.

Witnesses disagreed over what had happened, and debate raged over who changed course and when.

Of course, Princess Alice’s captain couldn’t give his side of the story.

What really happened that night will probably forever remain a mystery.

Bible Castle’s captain Harrison seemed to give conflicting accounts which every crewman from the Alice vehemently disagreed with.

A coroner’s inquest meanwhile found that Princess Alice was overloaded with people and there was not enough life-saving equipment on board for all.

There were some changes implemented after Princess Alice’s loss.

Instead of dumping toxic waste right into the tempames, a fleet of sludgeboats was commissioned to transport untreated waste for dumping into the North Sea instead.

This continued until 1998.

Also, the Marine Police Force found their rowboats had been insufficient and eventually replaced them with steam powered launchers.

The London Steamboat Company bought back the Rex two halves, recover the engines, and send the rest for scrap.

Londoners were so shocked, however, that steamer day trips on the temps suffered a reputational blow.

The company went bankrupt after just 6 years.

As for the Bible castle, well, in January 1883, she was sailing in the Bay of Bisque when she was caught in a monster storm and disappeared with all 40 of her crew.

Today, the Tempames is a popular waterway with excursions and tour boats moinguring up and down it all the time.

It’s easy to forget the river has a dangerous side, and that complacency kills.

In 1989, just over 110 years after Princess Alice had been run down and destroyed, it happened again.

The pleasure boat Martianess was slammed into by a dredger about 11 mi or 18 km up river from where Princess Alice had been lost.

The Martianess was another shocking tragedy that horrified London, but that’s a story for another day.

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