More than thirty years before the shocking disaster of RMS Titanic, another maritime horror filled the front pages of London's newspaper and it occurred far closer to home. SS Princess Alice was a paddle steamer owned by the London Steamboat Company, 219.4ft long and 20.2ft wide. The Board of Trade had surveyed the ship in 1878 and decided that it could carry a maximum of 936 passengers. On 3rd September that year, SS Princess Alice left Swan Pier, close to London Bridge, and headed to Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey in Kent. The return journey would call at Blackwall, North Woolwich, and the pleasure gardens at Rosherville. Tickets could be used interchangeably on any steamship owned by the company, so that those who did not wish to go all the way to Sheerness, or indeed could not afford to, had the option to make an outward journey to Rosherville on another vessel and join the Princess Alice for the return journey to Swan Pier; this journey cost as little as 2 shillings. As such...