The above map shows where we live (marked in green on the right hand side) - and our proximity to the position of the river disaster.
It was on September 1878 that the worst British river disaster occurred...
The Princess Alice was a passenger steamboat which, on that evening, was returning from Gravesend on the River Thames to return back to Swan pier near London bridge. (they called it a 'Moonlight Trip')
As she was was steaming towards Gallion’s Reach, just before Woolwich, she collided with a steam collier ship called the Bywell Castle.
The Princess Alice - licensed to carry 936 passengers - was thought to be carrying about 750 people returning from their pleasure cruise. The Bywell Castle was about four times her size and she was sliced in half - taking her four minutes to sink to the bottom of the river...
Bodies were taken to Woolwich Town hall where they were laid out in rows...
It was a horrific event and only about 100 people were saved. The local Watermen were paid 5 shillings for each body they recovered and were still doing so for weeks afterwards - although not all the bodies were recovered. Many were buried in a mass grave at Woolwich Cemetery. A memorial cross was raised - paid for by national sixpenny subscriptions, to which more than 23,000 people contributed.
The sinking happened very quickly - that area of the Thames was highly polluted from raw sewage that was pumped out - and the cross tides on the river are notoriously dangerous so that the chance of many surviving was always remote...
(In fact, a friend of myself and my husband, was fishing from a boat slightly further downsteam in the 1960’s. His boat overturned and although he was a strong swimmer, he drowned - just a couple of months prior to his wedding...)
The River Thames is beautiful - and deadly... I often think of that terrible evening in 1878 when we walk along the riverfront.
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