Model Railway Carriage made from the Wreck of the PS Princess Alice

Model railway carriage, 1/12 scale, Great Eastern Railway 3rd class 4-wheeled brake, c.1890, model built entirely of wood from Portsmouth & Ryde Steam Packet Co. ship PS 'Princess Alice' (1869-c.1885) by William Coney, coach builder at GER Stratford works, retired 1919.

The Princess Alice was a paddle steamer built in 1865. On September 3, 1878, the Princess Alice was travelling up the Thames. The ship had taken hundreds of passengers on a return trip to Sheerness, Kent. Some time after 7pm, as the steamer was on the return leg of the journey, it was struck by another ship. The Princess Alice began to sink. Despite best efforts to save passengers, the death toll was huge. The exact number of people on board the Princess Alice when it sank are unknown, but it is estimated that the disaster killed around 650 people. It is unknown how William Coney came into possession of this material.