London Stories

If you walk from St. Catherine's Dock Eastwards along the Thames towards Wapping you come across a some steps with a jetty at the base that leads down to the river, they're called "The Alderman Stairs" and have been there giving access to the water since at least the 1680's. Back in the day these steps would be buzzing with watermen ferrying people across the river and cargo brigs loading and unloading all kinds of goods for the metropolitan markets.

On first inspection they don't seem much but the history here is seeping from every stone block. On the 7th June 1851 a report was published in the Illustrated London News of several accidents on these very steps. Captain Artus of the Brig Melbourne, in attempting to ascend the steps missed his footing and fell into the river, he drowned. Around an hour later Captain Downie of the ship Mentor moored just off the base of the stairway fell overboard and perished. Then at 3pm that same day a boat containing two men and a woman was swamped and the female, Mrs Coghlan, was drowned. Three deaths on the same day, and many more reports of similar incidents over many decades, riverside life must have been hazardous in times gone by.