The Princess Alice Disaster

by Joan Lock

  ‘Then you seem to know very little about the matter,’ said the coroner.

  In answer to Mr Myburgh, for the Bywell Castle, he replied that he did not know of anyone being stationed on the lookout.

  Myburgh was astounded. ‘Do you mean to say that on these steamers going up and down the river there is nobody stationed on the lookout?’

  ‘I do not know.’

  ‘Yet you were second mate onboard this vessel?’

  ‘I hold no certificate.’

  The coroner pointed out that he acted as second mate. Myburgh was not going to let go of this gift to his clients. ‘I want to know again whether on these steamers, carrying 600–700 passengers up and down the river, there is no-one expressly stationed on the lookout?’

  Wilkinson repeated that he did not know. Would he have looked out if he had heard the whistle blow?

  ‘It was blown so often that I should have taken no notice of it.’

  Neither did he look up to see what vessel had struck them, nor had he seen any of the Bywell Castle’s lights or noticed whether the ship’s paddles were going at the time, or whether or not they had been in midstream.

  Had he not sworn to the Receiver of Wrecks that they were midstream?

  ‘No, I said she was more on the south shore.’

  ‘You come here pretending to know nothing,’ exclaimed an irritated Myburgh, ‘but here is your sworn statement. Have you not sworn to this?’

  ‘Yes … I understood that I said she was more to the south shore.’

  Myburgh persisted. Was his sworn statement true or not?

  ‘It must be true if I said it,’ Wilkinson said. There was laughter in court. He tried to retrack a little by claiming that the whistle was not meant for the crew but to warn the approaching vessel.

  A juryman wanted to know whether it was not the duty of the second mate to look out?

  ‘It is the duty of us all,’ he replied. The captain had ordered him to act as lookout when he was not at the wheel, he now said, and if he had left his lookout he would ask someone to take his place.

  Clearly the jury were becoming irritated with this seemingly simple-minded man and his conflicting evidence. ‘You have not said so before,’ a juryman complained. ‘You have been misleading us altogether.’

  More cross-questioning caused him to go back on this and claim again that there was no one on lookout.

  So when the men were not at the wheel and are not coiling ropes have they any duties to perform, inquired Harrington, the jury foreman?

  ‘They stand about on the decks.’

  ‘What doing?’

  ‘Passing away the time.’

  ‘He has no orders at all,’ said the coroner. He goes up and down and round about and does nothing. Do you call that the duty of a mate?’

  ‘I do not exactly know.’

  ‘Is it the duty of a sailor to lounge about the deck?’

  ‘I am not a sailor.’

  ‘There is no watch appointed?’

  ‘No.’5

  Henry Young, the foremast hand was, fortunately for the Princess Alice’s counsel, rather more observant as to the events preceding the collision and quite certain about there being lookouts. Indeed, the captain had said to him, ‘It’s a fine evening; keep a good lookout.’ As well as himself, Rand and Arnold (a boy who drowned) were also on lookout that night. ‘Rand was on the bow.’ He added that the captain was perfectly sober, as were also Eyers and Creed at the wheel. ‘I was sober too.’6

  The final witness from the Princess Alice’s crew was Thomas Longhurst, the ship’s engineer. Since he had been below he could not be an eyewitness to the collision and could not tell exactly when it happened.

  Shortly before, I had the order, ‘Ease her; stop her.’ As the vessel was going against the tide, she stopped almost immediately. About a minute afterwards, I had the order, ‘Go on.’ She had hardly got under way when I got the order to ease and stop again. Then came the crash. There were two heavy blows, then the water rushed into the engine room from below. Seeing that, I hurried on deck and jumped overboard. There were plenty of lifebelts onboard but I left them for those who could not swim.

  There was nothing wrong with his engines, he insisted. They were in beautiful order and had new boilers.

  ‘I can stop the engine in a second or two. I can work them as fast as you can talk,’ he told Mr Myburgh, the Bywell Castle lawyer.

  ‘Did not the giving of so many orders within so short a time look like a change of plan in the captain’s mind?’ inquired Myburgh.

  ‘It looked as if there was something in the way.’

  ‘Do you know where you were on the river when you got the first order to ease and stop?’ asked the coroner.

  ‘No, I was below.’

  ‘We may take it for granted that that order was given for the rounding of the point, and that the others were given in view of the approach of the Bywell Castle,’ said Carttar.7

  Later, Edward Kell, the Princess Alice’s money collector, was called as a witness. However, he was only able to add that the vessel was in line with the Talbot powder ship when she was struck. The Times commented that this went against the Bywell Castle’s claim.8

  Notes

  1. The Times, 17 September 1878 and Coroners’ Records COR/PA 3,4 & 22.

  2. (Long’s evidence and his examination): Ibid.

  3. (Eyers’ evidence and his examination): The Times, 18 September 1878 and Coroners’ Records COR/PA 5 & 22

  4. Ibid.

  5. (Wilkinson’s evidence and his examination): Ibid.

  6. Ibid.

  7. (Longhurst’s evidence and his examination) Ibid.

  8. The Times, 20 September 1878 and Coroners’ Records COR/PA 7 & 22.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Other Views

  Amongst those who next gave evidence at the Woolwich inquest were various Thames watermen who had not only seen the tragedy unfolding from the outside but were less likely to be biased in their opinions. They were also familiar with the ways of the river and the craft that sailed upon her although not, it transpired, with the rules governing their movement. These witnesses were interspersed with surviving passengers whose evidence was less inclined to be useful.

  Two new elements began to affect the atmosphere in court and the questions asked: fractious exchanges between those taking part and new suggestions as to the cause of death of some of the victims. Up until then, death had presumed to have been from drowning or, as with the saved who later died, from shock and immersion.

  Among the watermen giving evidence was, of course, barge-owner Abraham Deness. He described seeing all three lights of the Princess Alice as she rounded Tripcock Point, as close as possible to the south shore, then the Bywell Castle, her red light showing clearly to him by the Beckton Pier, and what followed. He went on, in a rather garbled fashion, to give the court the benefit of his thirty-six years of working the Thames and Medway by telling them of the peculiarities and dangers he had encountered while rounding Tripcock Point.

  … the tide will always bring us off the Point, the ebb tide coming round Bull’s Point [on the north side of the river opposite Woolwich] will strike above Tripcock and will then set off to north … so that coming around Tripcock Point a vessel will not only have the ordinary set of the ebb tide but will have this tide which sets off the Point on her port bow … A vessel coming round the Point with such a tide as was running that night would have considerable difficulty in getting her starboard helm to act. The tide setting from the Point would have a tendency to carry her off to midstream. At times it will take all command of a vessel against her helm, even in my barge. Mine is a short barge and the longer the vessel the greater the effect would be as the vessel would round the Point, carrying her to midstream … that is the way in which many collisions do take place.

  If that was to happen, he pointed out, she would present her port light to the vessel coming down Gallions Reach. He went on:

  She must do so un
til they get her straight, and when they get her straight in midstream when the tide does not act upon her bow she would spin round like a top in towards the south shore … if I were in a steamer on the ebb tide, if I had nothing in my way and I had a quantity of people onboard as the Princess Alice had, I would hug the south shore and get her straight for the Reach as quick as I could by easing of [sic] her. If they go at full speed there, the tide catches her nose and they are across the river in no time.1

  The vagaries of passage around Tripcock Point were becoming ever more pertinent. Just whereabouts the Princess Alice was when she was struck was a matter of great dispute between the chief representatives.

  Peter Brown had been on a schooner at anchor on the north side, near Beckton Gasworks, when he saw the Princess Alice showing a green light as she passed the Point, close by the Talbot powder magazine, then stop abreast of his schooner with her head pointing towards the south shore. This made him wonder whether there was something wrong with their engine. Then he saw a screw steamer (the Bywell Castle) half a mile upstream, which seemed close to the vessels riding on the south shore. ‘She must have starboarded her helm to come clear of them.’ Further down she ported her helm and then he saw her strike the Princess Alice.2

  However, there were doubts about Brown’s statement. Mr Myburgh, for the Bywell Castle, questioned him closely about various statements he had made suggesting that the Princess Alice had stopped for five minutes before the collision and that she was unmanageable, and about papers allegedly signed by him with offers of money for his statement.

  A different scenario had unfolded for Henry Erb, master of the barge Sarah from Rochester lying at the upper end of the Beckton Gasworks pier. He said he was thinking it strange that the Princess Alice had stopped when he saw the Bywell Castle coming round Bull’s Point, keeping to the north. Had she held her course, he said, she would not have gone near the pleasure steamer, but she suddenly hard a-ported so that, had she not touched the Princess Alice, she would have gone ashore on the south side just below the Castalia (one of the vessels moored in line beyond the Talbot powder barge). He could see no reason for the collision because there was plenty of room.

  Joseph Burnitt, the master of the schooner Anne Elizabeth from Goole, was at anchor about 300 yd above Beckton Pier when he saw the Bywell Castle coming down Gallions Reach, heading a little over to the north shore, and Princess Alice going fairly slowly as she rounded Tripcock Point, then stopping for half a minute before she was struck.

  William Steer, the master of the topsail barge Benjamin Riddell, thought the pleasure steamer was making for the north shore, after coming close round Tripcock Point to cheat the tide, and keeping so until she passed the powder ship when she steered on a slight port helm. ‘From my knowledge of navigation I should have said the Bywell Castle ought not to have ported after the Princess Alice starboarded – that is what brought about the collision.’3

  The Talbot powder barge had a roof and was completely enclosed leaving only two little windows from which lookouts kept an eye open for vessels coming too near. However, that evening, one of the watchmen had been on a ladder outside, preparing to bring in a rowing boat, when he saw the accident. He declared that the Princess Alice had been at least a third of the way across the river.

  It was during the evidence of Mr Henry Gordon Fry, surveyor for the Thames Conservancy Board, that irritations began to surface. He had produced a chart showing the position of the wreck. The Times reported what happened next:

  The witness was questioned minutely by the Foreman as to the accuracy of his measurements and the examination being somewhat tedious, several of the jury loudly expressed their impatience. This gave rise to a scene of recrimination, in the course of which one of the jurymen complained that from the opening of the inquiry up to the previous evening the Foreman had asked no fewer than 1,131 questions.4

  The Times was not the only newspaper to report these exchanges and, at the opening of proceedings the next morning, the foreman complained that several of them had been ‘animadverting’ upon his conduct as foreman of the jury. He was clearly wounded:

  I take it as a most unhandsome thing to do. My hands are tied at the present and I have no chance of replying to those paragraphs.

  He added that the criticisms disturbed his mind when his attention should be devoted to the inquiry alone and asked that they desist until the inquest was over. Then they could say what they liked about him.

  The coroner supported Mr Harrington but, as ever, the foreman was not quite finished.

  Allow me sir to make one other remark. It is impossible for the gentlemen of the press to understand the object of the questions I put … they may imagine I am wasting their time; but if they knew how I am situated with my family they would be perfectly well aware that it is no pleasure to be kept away from them for so long.

  ‘It is no pleasure for any of us’, interjected a juryman.5

  It was clear, however, that it was not just the press who had problems with the foreman. When Harrington insisted on seeing not a map but longitudinal sections of the hull of the Princess Alice, barrister Captain Pim (representing the family of victim, Mr Bridgeman) commented that he did not think the longitudinal sections would be of importance. The foreman retorted, ‘I am sorry I differ from the learned counsel; but it is the jury who have to deal with the facts.’6 Given Captain Pim’s navy service and the fact that since retirement he had built up a law practice based on admiralty cases, one imagines he felt himself qualified to judge whether longitudinal sections might be of importance.

  There was also an altercation between a barrister who wanted to chip in with questions and call witnesses when he had not been among those hitherto involved in the case. A juryman and Mr Harrington weighed in to defend the coroner.

  The law men were also becoming impatient with each other. Captain Pim asked Mr Hughes to make the evidence of his witnesses as short as possible. ‘A number of gentlemen have been examined on behalf of the Steamboat Company and the jury must have arrived at a pretty good judgement a far as that evidence was concerned.’7 Mr Hughes was robustly defending his rights to call whatever witnesses he wished when a juryman butted in to point out that some of the evidence that had been given the day before was not at all calculated to strengthen his (Mr Hughes’s) case.

  This was going too far. Some knuckle-rapping was called for. ‘It would have been better’, said the coroner, ‘not even to have made that observation. It was an expression of opinion that the jury were not entitled to arrive at yet.’ 8

  But Mr Hughes continued to bring on the Princess Alice survivors, one of whom, reported The Times, appeared to know nothing about the accident. Another, clerk, Herbert Augustus Wiele, who had given quite detailed evidence to a newspaper with regard to the position of the Princess Alice in the river before the impact, now admitted that he had ‘altered his views’ after reading the evidence of other witnesses and having been to the scene of the wreck – exactly what the coroner had been worried about.9

  Mr Nelson, who represented Dix, the pilot, was also becoming weary of all this and exclaimed that if Mr Hughes intended to call all seventy-eight persons who had made statements in the newspapers a great deal of time would be wasted.

  Hughes protested again. What he wanted principally to prove was that their vessel was on the south shore. ‘If that was admitted I could curtail my evidence materially.’ Mr Myburgh countered that his whole case was that the Bywell Castle was justified, from what he saw, in supposing that Captain Grinstead intended to go to the north shore. Mr Hughes declared that he would call witnesses to prove that that supposition was inaccurate. ‘The chart shows her pretty near the centre of the river,’ murmured the coroner.10 So the endless parade of witnesses giving their conflicting evidence continued.

  Newspaper readers did not have to worry too much about deciding whether the evidence proved that the Princess Alice had been on the north shore, the south shore or the in the middle. They were advised o
n that in an introduction which appeared before the very detailed report of the actual proceedings. These introductions explained, for example, that what some of the endless exchanges were about was whether the Princess Alice was in the centre of the river, in which case the captain of the Bywell Castle was justified in thinking she was making for the north shore; whether she was on the south shore and therefore the Bywell Castle altered her course unnecessarily; or whether the impact of the collision had driven the wreck to the centre of the river, thereby giving the impression that that was where she had been in the first place.

  One example of the confusion that arose after an accident like this, claimed The Times, was that several witnesses had sworn that the band was still playing at the moment of collision, whereas the musician, Robert Haines, gave evidence that all of them, except him, had gone below and he had been at the top of the steps preparing to follow them. (Hotelier, James Huddart, who had been deserted by his companion Emma Eatwell at that moment, was one who made that claim.) Haines said:

  I stood amazed for a moment with the bass viol in my hands, not knowing what to do with it. Then, dropping the viol, I ran up on the saloon deck, where I saw the captain, and got upon the awning. The captain blew the whistle until the steam failed. When the vessel sank under me I caught hold of a man with a lifebelt so was saved.

  Oddly, Mr Hughes inquired after Haines’s musical instrument. He replied, ‘The bass viol floated away, but I have heard of it down the river. My bow was picked up at Gravesend’.11

  The additional causes of death that had also been thrown into the mix were injuries found on victims which may had been caused by the propeller or screw of the Bywell Castle which, it was alleged, had not stopped turning following impact.

  Joseph Hawes (a steward on another London Steamboat Company boat but a Princess Alice passenger on the fateful day and who had climbed up a rope to board the Bywell Castle) claimed that he overheard a row between the captain, mate and pilot as to whether to stop the engines. Mr Nelson, for the pilot, said that this evidence had nothing to do with the collision, but the feisty foreman exclaimed that it had a great deal to do with their inquiry. ‘Some of the people may have been killed by the propeller of the Bywell Castle.’ 12