
Princess Alice disaster: The Thames' 650 forgotten dead - Jaruzel
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44800309
======
walrus01
see also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS_General_Slocum)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Eastland)

Current passenger ship safety regulations are very much written in blood.

~~~
dmix
Interestingly the saftey regulations also _contributed_ to the sinking of SS
Eastland (your 2nd link):

> During 1915, the new federal Seamen's Act had been passed because of the RMS
> Titanic disaster three years earlier. The law required retrofitting of a
> complete set of lifeboats on Eastland, as on many other passenger
> vessels.[7] This additional weight may have made Eastland more dangerous by
> making it even more top-heavy. Some argued that other Great Lakes ships
> would suffer from the same problem.[7] Nonetheless, it was signed into law
> by President Woodrow Wilson.

------
keithpeter
A more recent collision

[https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pleasure-boat-
disaster...](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/pleasure-boat-disaster-on-
river-thames-was-a-1614686.html)

I think I remember it appearing in a fictional work as well or being alluded
to

------
Jaruzel
Reason I posted this to HN, not only because it was interesting, but having
recently finished watching Ripper Street, there's a character in that show
who's backstory relates to this.

------
aaron695
Some original articles -

[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220442169](https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/220442169)

[https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107939744](https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/107939744)

> Is sewage deadly?

No, the Thames back then would have been the same as many rivers in many
poorer countries today. Many of these rivers are scavenged, not without issue,
but a quick dunk isn't going to have immediately killed anyone. Author needs
to travel more, oldie England is still alive and kicking around the world.

~~~
petercooper
Just how vile and dangerous the Thames was in Victorian times can't be
underplayed though (my mother remains pretty vocal about how terrible it was
in the _60s_!). The idea of moving Parliament out of London was even
considered as the smell from the Thames was affecting daily life as far
upstream as Westminster:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink)

An interesting aside related to the Princess Alice disaster is that the main
northern sewer was only finally fully working months before the disaster and
its outflow was very close to the crash site. Work began in the next decade to
purify the sewage rather than just dumping it into the Thames there.

But I'd argue (and this is just a hunch) that sewage was "deadly" then in the
sense that if the water then were as clean as now, the death toll would have
been _far_ lower, especially as the crash happened so close to (admittedly
rather muddy) land.

~~~
cstross
Sewage was _widely believed_ to be deadly due to its association with "night
airs", which the (now disproven) miasma theory of disease held was responsible
for many infections. While John Snow demonstrated the epidemiological evidence
for contagion (physical contact) as the mechanism for disease transmission in
1857, actual _proof_ that bacteria were the caustative agent in contagious
infectious disease only became available in the late 1870s (via the work of,
in particular, Robert Koch and Louis Pasteir), and medical opinion (as with
public opinion) was slow to adapt to new scientific findings in those days.

More on the miasma theory of disease here:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miasma_theory)

~~~
polaritron
There's definitely still a sewage treatment plant near the site of the
accident:

[https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sheerness,+UK/@51.5112905,...](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Sheerness,+UK/@51.5112905,0.0848886,1853m/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckton#Sewage_works](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beckton#Sewage_works)

But you can't discount the difference between the dictionary definition of "
_sewage_ " versus the reality of incidental pollution as discovered in-situ.

Case in point:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Canal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gowanus_Canal)

[http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2010/03/post_25.html](http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2010/03/post_25.html)

[https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/ten-feet-of-black-
mayon...](https://www.timeout.com/newyork/blog/ten-feet-of-black-mayonnaise-
line-the-gowanus-canal-101315)

[https://ny.curbed.com/2018/7/19/17590126/brooklyn-gowanus-
dr...](https://ny.curbed.com/2018/7/19/17590126/brooklyn-gowanus-dredgers-
canoeing-superfund-site)

[http://nautil.us/blog/in-the-black-mayonnaise-of-
brooklyns-g...](http://nautil.us/blog/in-the-black-mayonnaise-of-brooklyns-
gowanus-canal-alien-life-is-being-born)

[https://www.brownstoner.com/development/gowanus-canal-
black-...](https://www.brownstoner.com/development/gowanus-canal-black-
mayonnaise-superfund-epa-cleanup-brooklyn/)

[https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161123/gowanus/gowanus-
ca...](https://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20161123/gowanus/gowanus-canal-debris-
removal-epa-environmental-protection-agency/)

Also:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtown_Creek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newtown_Creek)

