The Paisley canal disaster occurred on the 10 November 1810 on the Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal

Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone Canal

The Glasgow, Paisley and Ardrossan Canal was a canal in the west of Scotland, running between Glasgow, Paisley and Johnstone which later became a railway. Despite the name, the canal was never completed down to Ardrossan, the termini being Port Eglinton in Glasgow and Thorn Brae in Johnstone...

, a canal

Canal

Canals are man-made channels for water. There are two types of canal:#Waterways: navigable transportation canals used for carrying ships and boats shipping goods and conveying people, further subdivided into two kinds:...

 linking Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

 to Paisley

Paisley

Paisley is the largest town in the historic county of Renfrewshire in the west central Lowlands of Scotland and serves as the administrative centre for the Renfrewshire council area...

 and Johnstone

Johnstone

Johnstone is a town in the council area of Renfrewshire and larger historic county of the same name in the west central Lowlands of Scotland.The town lies three miles west of neighbouring Paisley and twelve miles west of the centre of the city of Glasgow...

 in Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire

Renfrewshire is one of 32 council areas used for local government in Scotland. Located in the west central Lowlands, it is one of three council areas contained within the boundaries of the historic county of Renfrewshire, the others being Inverclyde to the west and East Renfrewshire to the east...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

.

Family pleasure trip

A 60-foot canal boat designed for holiday day trip

Day Trip

Day Trip is the studio album of jazz guitarist Pat Metheny along with Christian McBride and Antonio Sanchez.It was released by Nonesuch Records on January 29, 2008.-Track listing:-Personnel:* Pat Metheny - Guitar* Christian McBride - Bass...

s between the two towns operated from a dock belonging to a Mr. Barclay in Paisley. The charter had been in operation for approximately a week and had proven enormously popular with local people, who took their families on the journey on their day off from work as a pleasure cruise. The cost of a trip was just 8 pence, and with the day in question experiencing some unseasonable good weather, a lot of people were hoping to take a ride.

Crowd surge

At 1pm in the afternoon of the 10th November, the boat had returned to Barclay's dock, where a large crowd had gathered, hoping to join the cruise. As the previous load of passengers disembarked, the crowd waiting on the dock became anxious and began to push forward. This agitation increased rapidly, until those at the rear of the crowd surged forwards in an attempt to secure a place on the boat. Dozens of people fell into the canal, where a number drowned as they were unable to swim.

Panic and capsize

The real tragedy however, took place on the canal boat itself, when the number of people surging onto the craft at one end combined with the panic

Panic

Panic is a sudden sensation of fear which is so strong as to dominate or prevent reason and logical thinking, replacing it with overwhelming feelings of anxiety and frantic agitation consistent with an animalistic fight-or-flight reaction...

ked previous passengers attempting to scramble off at the other caused the boat to capsize

Capsize

Capsizing is an act of tipping over a boat or ship to disable it. The act of reversing a capsized vessel is called righting.If a capsized vessel has sufficient flotation to prevent sinking, it may recover on its own if the stability is such that it is not stable inverted...

 totally, trapping over 60 people in the narrow passage along the inside of the boat with no hope of escape.

Desperate attempts were made to rescue those in the water, and three people were pulled from the interior of the boat, but the majority of those inside the craft were unable to be rescued. When the barge was righted a week later, the final death toll was established at 84 people, of whom 66 were under 20 years old and 18 under 10. The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

carried articles on the disaster

Disaster

A disaster is a natural or man-made hazard that has come to fruition, resulting in an event of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life, or drastic change to the environment...

 on the 16th and 19 November.

See also

• Canals of the United Kingdom
  Canals of the United Kingdom
  The canals of the United Kingdom are a major part of the network of inland waterways in the United Kingdom. They have a colourful history, from use for irrigation and transport, through becoming the focus of the Industrial Revolution, to today's role for recreational boating...
  
  
• History of the British canal system
  History of the British canal system
  The British canal system of water transport played a vital role in the United Kingdom's Industrial Revolution at a time when roads were only just emerging from the medieval mud and long trains of pack horses were the only means of "mass" transit by road of raw materials and finished products The...