River of Tears,

I was born and bred in Plumstead near Woolwich,

The "Who'd Of Thought It" pub on Plumstead common.

and spent a lot of my time as a kid traveling with my Grandmother up and down the River Thames on pleasure boats, mainly on school holidays when my Mum and Dad had to work, well I have known Father Thames called many things, but looking up something else I noticed it was at some time known as "The River of Tears" this is why I think it earned that nickname,

The Paddle steamer "Princess Alice" was one of many pleasure steamers working the Thames in the late nineteenth century. Named after PRINCESS ALICE, Grand Duchess of Hesse-Darmstadt and the third daughter of Queen Victoria. Tuesday September 3rd, 1878, was a warm sunny day and about 700 day trippers were enjoying a round trip from London bridge to Sheerness, with several stops along the journey. As the Princess Alice made its way back up river in the evening, passengers prepared for disembarking and the band packed up their instruments, it was the end of an idyllic day. It was about 7.45pm, dusk was falling, and the lights of Woolwich came into sight as the Princess Alice rounded Tripcock point and into Galleons reach.. Shortly before this, a coal ship, the "Bywell Castle" had left Millwall dock, bound for Newcastle after having been re painted. Both Captains were very experienced, and the Bywell Castle also had a Thames Pilot aboard. As the Princess Alice came into Galleons reach, the two captains saw each others vessels. The pilot of the Bywell Castle was moving at half speed down the middle of the river and observed that the Princess Alice appeared to move towards the north shore and steered his own ship slightly to the south shore. Meanwhile, aboard the Princess Alice, captain Grinstead could see the Bywell castle and assumed it would give way. As the two ships bore down on each other, the pilot of the Bywell Castle could see that a collision was inevitable and gave the order to reverse engines full speed, but it was too late. The giant steel collier quietly sliced the Alice almost in two and within five minutes the paddle steamer slipped beneath the waves taking hundreds of souls to a watery grave.

Now a ghastly fight for survival was beginning, made worse by the awful state of the river. Sewage and industrial waste was at that time dumped untreated into the Thames. A few managed to swim to safety, others clung to floating debris and waited to be picked up by rescue boats. In all, only 69 were saved. The exact number of dead is not known, but the most accurate estimates put the figure at around 640. So it was this event which I think led to Father Thames being called "The River of Tears"

pleasure steamers at Tower Bridge at about, I am guessing in the early 1900's.