Thames Tragedy

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30983, 12 February 1966, Page 4

Thames Tragedy

The Great Thames Disaster. By Gavin Thurston. Allen and Unwin. 173 pp. Illustrated.

This book records a shipping disaster in the River Thames, London. Nearly 90 years ago a passenger paddle steamer was rammed by a screw steamer. There were 800 people on board the paddle steamer of whom over 600 were drowned. In the intervening years the tragedy has been forgotten, but the records are now published by a Londoner, Gavin Thurston who is a doctor, barrister and a coroner. He has taken immense pains to give a true picture of the disaster. All the official records were at his disposal and while there is, naturally, a good deal of re-

petition, the story loses nothing in dramatic appeal and horror.

The paddle steamer, Princess Alice was on its return trip from a cruise down the Thames, and was struck by the Byewell Castle a screw steamer. The paddle steamer broke in two and sank. The cause of the tragedy was never satisfactorily settled. The loss of life was appalling. The inquest lasted sixteen days. The stories of the recovery of bodies from the sewage-saturated river are revolting. The competition among the Thames waterman, who received five shillings a body, is a sidelight of the coarseness and brutality of the time. The coroner’s summingup filled 213 foolscap pages and consisted of 65,000 words. The author has done a grisly job well. The illustrations are vivid.