Augusta Tatham

abt 1874 - 1881  (~ 6 years)

• Name	Augusta Tatham  [1]
  Known as	"Dolly"
  Birth	abt Nov 1874	Royal Artillery Barracks, Portsmouth   [1, 2, 3]
  Baptism	06 Dec 1874	St Mark, Portsea   [4]
  		Augusta Tatham (1874-1881) Baptism register
  Emigration	1879	Canada   [5]
  	Cabin passengers on "Peruvian" arr Quebec ex Liverpool 21 Sep 1879: Mrs Tatham (lady), R B Tatham (ch), C H Tatham (ch), H Tatham (gent), Mrs Tatham (lady), Inf Tatham (inf)
  Residence	Apr 1881	London, ON   [1]
  Death	24 May 1881	London, ON ; Cause: Drowning  [3, 6]
  	On May 24, 1881 Queen Victoria celebrated her 62nd birthday. The event offered Londoners a rare holiday from their six-day workweeks. Many had decided to take the 15 cent boat ride to Springbank Park and the ferry operators were eager for the extra business. By the time the Victoria arrived at the park for the afternoon's last return trip, the dock was packed. The Victoria was designed to carry 400 passengers. By the time it pulled out from the Springbank pavilion at five o'clock it carried 650. The passengers were excited and kept rushing from one side to the other. Captain Rankin told them repeatedly to stand still and not crowd so much. Coincidentally, near the site of the plaque, the London City Rowing Club, unaware of the Victoria's peril, decided to race it down the Thames in their scull. It was the final ingredient for disaster. People rushed over to the right hand side of the ship to take a look but the crowd was just too big. The ship keeled over and the boiler rolled off its mount. As it toppled overboard the boiler took out the main supports for the top deck which then collapsed on the passengers below. In a matter of seconds the structure of the Victoria had disintegrated in seventeen feet of water. The scenes that followed can only be described as horrific. Many women were dragged under the surface by the weight of their waterlogged dresses. The total death count was estimated at 182, although it was probably higher. It was London's greatest loss of life in a single day. "The captain blamed the people. The people blamed the owners of the ship and the company line," sums up Kenneth McTaggart, the author of the 1978 book, The Victoria Day Disaster. "Everybody blamed everybody else without realizing - they all caused it." [Waymarks website accessed 19 Oct 2010]
  		Victoria River Boat Disaster (24 May 1881) Augusta Tatham ("Dolly"), aged 7, was one of the 182 victims
  Person ID	I3663	Tatham | Heathcote branch | Descendant - male line
  Last Modified	24 Oct 2019

  
  

  Father	Herbert Tatham,   b. 28 Feb 1838, Middlesex Hospital, Marylebone ,   d. 25 Oct 1900, London, ON  (Age 62 years)
  Mother	Emily Evans Springer,   b. abt 1839, Nova Scotia ,   d. 31 Jan 1899, Canada?  (Age ~ 60 years)
  Marriage	23 Dec 1868	St Paul's Cathedral, London, ON   [3]
  Family ID	F0787	Family Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

• Sources

  [S01] Census, Canada, 1881. age 7 b England [S02] BMD Index, birth reg Fareham, 4Q1874. [S28] Family Bible, Heathcote Tatham. [S06] Parish Registers, baptisms, St Mark, Portsea, 06 Dec 1874. [S12] Passenger Lists, Peruvian, 21 Sep 1879. [S33] Family Letters, Bregatta Fordney, 05 May 1949. Letter to Arthur Tyrone Tatham