| THE
PRINCESS ALICE DISASTER: A TALK BY MAUREEN NICHOLLS & MAURICE
AMPS
Our
well attended January meeting heard from Maureen how a disaster,
which happened in 1878, led her into Family History research.
Whilst watching a TV programme on the sinking of the Lucitania
by a German torpedo & hearing about all those who drowned,
the casual remark made by Maureen’s mother that Aunt Mary
drowned made Maureen question her mum - had Aunt Mary drowned
when the Lucitania went down. Mother’s answer was ‘No-
she drowned in the Thames’.
With no more information forthcoming Maureen became intrigued
with Aunt Mary & after asking around was told she could get
information from the newspapers of the time.
Living in London made access to the Newspaper Library easy on
her days off.
Diligent searching of many papers produced the story with hand
drawn pictures of the event.
A
collision occurred between the passenger boat The Princess Alice
returning from Sheerness & the coal carrier Bywell Castle
coming from the dry dock after repairs & repainting, on the
sultry evening of 3rd September 1878 on the river Thames, on a
bend where the north & south sewage outfalls fell into the
river. Over 600 people were drowned despite small boats going
to the rescue.
Many people couldn’t swim & most were dragged down into
the putrid water by their heavy clothing.
Maureens’s search showed that her great Aunt Mary Ball had
drowned & also that she had been in the company of a married
man, a licensed victualler! The story goes that Mary, who was
in service, & being off duty wore her hair free & long
& that her man friend seeing a lady in the water thought it
was Mary & grasped her long hair & dragged her ashore
only to find that it wasn’t Mary he had saved!
He must have given information about Mary so that perhaps her
employers were informed & hence her mother Bridget Ball identified
her daughter body.
Procedures were followed to inform relatives of the named passengers.
Maureen told her mother what she had found out & that Bridget
was Mary’s mother –Mum’s quick answer was ‘yes
& Robert was her father’ which as Maureen said was the
first lesson she learned when researching family history - that
you should question family members very carefully & get as
much information as possible from them.
Maurice
interspersed Maureen’s talk with the technical details of
both vessels & the inquest.
A Mr Carttar was the coroner & the hearing lasted over a month.
Over 600 people drowned & the cost of the inquest was £4621
16s 6d.
Criticisms were made of both captains. The Alice’s captain
went down with his ship with his wife & children.
As there were no ‘rules of the river ‘in those days
the outcome of this incident brought about changes in that ships
now pass each other ‘port to port’ amongst other rulings.
It was also stated that the Alice was probably overloaded. It
was known that the Bywell had a pilot on board but that the collision
occurred because both captains thought they were steering away
from each other when in fact the opposite happened.
Maureen’s
talk could have very dismal but she cleverly lightened it by anecdotes
& stories of her family which she said were ‘ stories
for another day’!
There were many photos & copies of the newspapers for us to
look at whilst we enjoyed refreshments & there is a very good
web site about this incident.
Our
February speaker is Susanah Farmer whose talk is on ‘Pig
Clubs’- another way of researching family history!
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