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!
[Barbara Holmes]