Lentorama 2022: It Happened on Easter

Day 7: The RMS Royal Adelaide sinks

The RMS Royal Adelaide was a paddle steamer that ran a route between London and Cork. It left Cork on March 27, 1850, landed at Plymouth the following evening, and left for London on Good Friday morning with 250 deck passengers. It apparently ran on to a sandbar in the Tongue Sands in the Thames estuary, near Margate, and would eventually sink, taking all on board with it. Emergency signals had been sent, but not acted upon, and authorities were unaware that the ship had gone down until Easter Sunday.

This wreck should not be confused with the Royal Adelaide shipwreck of November 1865, when an iron ship of the same name was pushed onto Chesil Beach during a storm. Only seven of the 70 or so passengers and crew died, but four of the volunteers who came out to help save passengers and cargo apparently died from exposure when they spent the night on the beach after getting drunk off of salvaged booze.