A family day out on the Thames ended with more than 600 lives lost after their steamer sank into sewage-polluted water.

A family day out on the Thames ended with more than 600 lives lost after their steamer sank into sewage-polluted water.

Imagine taking your family for a day out on the Thames. You have had a lovely day, the children are tired, music is still playing on deck and you are finally heading back towards London.

The Great Disaster on the Thames — Collision between the Princess Alice and the Bywell Castle, near Woolwich, 1878. Originally published in the Illustrated London News; reproduced in Harper’s Weekly. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Then another ship appears ahead.

Today I want to discover more about the Princess Alice disaster of 1878, because I honestly think this is one of those Victorian tragedies that far more people should know about.

On the 3rd of September 1878, the paddle steamer Princess Alice was carrying hundreds of passengers back to London after a pleasure excursion. These trips were really popular with Victorian families and, when you think about it, it probably felt no different from taking the family out for the day now.

That evening, near Woolwich, the Princess Alice came into the path of the much larger steam collier Bywell Castle.

The two ships collided, and the impact was devastating. The Princess Alice was badly torn open and sank within just a few minutes.

Passengers were thrown into the Thames while others were trapped inside. Rescue attempts started straight away, but this is the part that makes the whole story even more horrific for me.

The river was heavily polluted.

Untreated sewage from nearby outfalls was being discharged into the Thames, so the people fighting to stay alive were doing so in filthy, contaminated water. Survivors later spoke about the awful smell and taste, and some people who were rescued later died after swallowing it.

I cannot imagine the panic. One minute you are sitting with your family on a pleasure steamer, and the next you are suddenly in freezing, foul water trying to find your children, your husband, your wife or anyone you arrived with.

There was no complete passenger list, so we will probably never know the exact number who died, but around 640 people are believed to have lost their lives.

What gets me most is just how ordinary the day had been. These were not people knowingly heading into danger. They had gone out for a family trip and were simply trying to get home.

It is such a heartbreaking reminder of how quickly an ordinary day could turn into a disaster.

Had you ever heard of the Princess Alice disaster before?

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