I found nothing on the song, but a summary of the disaster can be found here ~~ http://www.readysnacks.mcmail.com/alice.htm I had never heard of it before. (but then, there are a lot of things I have never heard of before) As a result of a collision with another boat, the paddle steamer Princess Anne went down in the Thames on 3 Sep 1878 with the loss of over 600 lives. As mentioned at the bottom of the page, a 1965 book by Gavin Thurston details the incident. I located a couple of used copies at Barnes and Noble in the $15-$20 range.