Between 600 and 700 people died, all from Princess Alice, the greatest loss of life of any British inland waterway shipping accident.

She took the wrong sailing line and was hit by Bywell Castle; the point of the collision was the area of the Thames where 75 million imperial gallons (340,000 m3) of London's raw sewage had just been released.

The jury in the coroner's inquest considered both vessels at fault, but more blame was put on Bywell Castle; the inquiry run by the Board of Trade found that Princess Alice had not followed the correct path and her captain was culpable.

In 1867 she was sold to the Waterman's Steam Packet Co. to travel on the River Thames; the company renamed the vessel Princess Alice, after Queen Victoria's third child.

[5][10] In 1878 another survey by the Board of Trade allowed the ship to carry a maximum of 936 passengers between London and Gravesend in calm water.

[14] On 3 September 1878 Princess Alice was making what was billed as a "Moonlight Trip" from Swan Pier, near London Bridge, downstream to Sheerness, Kent, and back.

[15][16] Princess Alice left Rosherville at about 6:30 pm on her return to Swan Pier; she was carrying close to her full capacity of passengers, although no lists were kept, and the exact number of people on board is unknown.

[17][18] The master of Princess Alice, 47-year-old Captain William Grinstead, allowed his helmsman to stay at Gravesend, and replaced him with a seaman named John Eyers.

[30] The crew of Bywell Castle dropped ropes from their deck for the passengers of Princess Alice to climb; they also threw anything that would float into the water for people to hold.

[32][33] Many of the passengers from Princess Alice were unable to swim; the long heavy dresses worn by women also hindered their efforts to stay afloat.

[34] Princess Alice's sister ship, Duke of Teck, was steaming ten minutes behind her; she arrived too late to rescue anyone left in the water.

The twice-daily release of 75 million imperial gallons (340,000 m3) of raw sewage from the sewer outfalls Abbey Mills, at Barking, and the Crossness Pumping Station had occurred one hour before the collision.

[38] In a letter to The Times shortly after the collision, a chemist described the outflow as: Two continuous columns of decomposed fermenting sewage, hissing like soda-water with baneful gases, so black that the water is stained for miles and discharging a corrupt charnel-house odour, that will be remembered by all ... as being particularly depressing and sickening.

[40] Adding to the foulness of the water, a fire in Thames Street earlier that day had resulted in oil and petroleum entering the river.

Seeing collision inevitable, stopped our engines and reversed full speed, when the two vessels collided, the bow of Bywell Castle cutting into the other steamer, which was crowded with passengers, with a dreadful crash.

[45][46] Local watermen were hired for £2 a day to search for bodies; they were paid a minimum of five shillings for each one they recovered, which sometimes led to fights over the corpses.

Sixteen of those who survived died within two weeks, and several others were ill.[38][49] On 4 September Charles Carttar, the coroner for West Kent, opened the inquest for his region.

This was beached at low tide—2:00 am on 7 September—at Woolwich; while she was being pulled ashore, Bywell Castle steamed past, leaving London, but without her captain, who remained.

[58] Because of the accelerated rate of decomposition of many of the corpses, the burials of many of those still unidentified took place on 9 September at Woolwich cemetery in a mass grave;[38][40] several thousand people were in attendance.

[64] The first two weeks of Carttar's inquest were given over to the formal identification of the bodies, and visits to the wreck site to examine the remains of Princess Alice.

Carttar began by bemoaning the media coverage of the event, which suggested strongly that Bywell Castle had been in error and should take the blame.

[66][e] Numerous Thames boatmen appeared as witnesses, all of whom had been active in the area at the time; their stories of the path taken by Princess Alice differed considerably.

Most pleasure craft coming upriver on the Thames would round Tripcock Point and head for the northern bank to take advantage of more favourable currents.

[68] During the inquest evidence was taken from George Purcell, the stoker on Bywell Castle, who, on the night of the sinking, had told several people that the captain and crew of the ship were drunk.

[70] On 14 November, after twelve hours of discussion, the inquest released its verdict; four members of the nineteen-member jury refused to sign the statement.

Specific charges were laid against Captain Harrison, two of the crew members of Bywell Castle, and against Long, the first mate of Princess Alice; all had their licences suspended at the start of the hearing.

[89][90] Princess Alice's owner, the London Steamboat Co, purchased the wreck of the vessel from the Thames Conservancy for £350;[m] the engines were salvaged and the remainder sent to a ship breaker.

According to the historian Jerry White, along with competition from the railways and bus services, the sinking of Princess Alice "had some impact ... in blighting the tidal Thames as a pleasure-ground".

[91] Bywell Castle was reported missing on 29 January 1883 sailing between Alexandria and Hull; it carried a cargo of cottonseed and beans.