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From ‘The Times’- 23rd/24th June 1834
On a Saturday afternoon, about 2 o’clock, in June 1834, the ‘Thames’ an East Indiaman, once chartered by the East India Company, was towed from Messrs. Curling and Young’s yard at Limehouse to the Shadwell entrance of the London Dock after she had just completed her repairs and a new copper-bottomed fitted. As she was being hauled into the dock, when she got jammed in the lock, just where a swivel bridge revolved, consequently cutting off all communication between the new entrance and the river. The vessel was brought to the lock entrance, after the tide had fallen about 13 inches, but it was expected she would go through the lock. The ship, however, stuck fast in the lock abaft the fore chains, and as the tide fell she got lower in the lock, three steam-vessels tried to pull her astern into the river, but they could not succeed in moving her. They keep trying until her bottom touched the ground. The news soon spread around in every direction, and up to the late hour’s a great number of individuals, among whom were gentlemen of nautical experience, visited the ship, which seemed like an immovable rock. It was fully expected that the ship would be lifted at high water the next morning, but there were not a few captains of ships who expressed their fears that the tide would never raise her, so firmly was she wedged between the piers. Every precaution had been used in shoring the ship aft, by means of large props, to prevent her twisting, in case the tide should raise her. This fine ship measures 1,425 tons register, and is the largest ever brought so far up the Pool. It was said that Captain Maughan, the dock master, expressed his doubts some days before as to the entrance being wide enough to admit the ship, but it was resolved to make the experiment.
At 2 o’clock on the Sunday morning the ‘Thames’ was towed out of the entrance to the London-docks, without having sustained any injury, owing to the extraordinary strength of her build. She went back into Messrs. Curling and Young’s dry-dock, where she was all Monday morning being examined by the surveyors of Lloyd’s. They later reported that she had sustained no damage, she was towed in the afternoon into the East India-docks, where she took take in her cargo to make ready to take about 1,000 emigrants to Van Dieman’s Land and New South Wales.
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