Mark Addy (oarsman)

Mark Addy AM (1838 – 9 June 1890) was a publican and champion oarsman, from Manchester, England, who was awarded the Albert Medal (AM), and a number of other honours, for the rescue of over 50 people from the then highly polluted River Irwell in the 19th century. The Albert Medal was later superseded by the George Cross as the highest civilian or non-combat gallantry award in the British honours system.

Addy was born in 1838 at 2, Stage Buildings, The Parsonage, an Italianate-style tenement on the banks of the River Irwell near Blackfriars Bridge in Manchester, Lancashire. His father was a boatman, also named Mark Addy, and young Mark assisted him with the family boat-hire business on the river. At the age of 13, Addy, rescued one of his friends, John Booth, who had fallen into the Irwell, which ran along the side of his house. Although Mark was himself unable to swim he effected the rescue by wading out up to his chin and pulling the lad ashore. The same boy was rescued by Addy some time later, when he fell into a pool of deep water, but this time Mark floated out on a plank to rescue him.

In his teens Addy learned to swim at Greengate Baths in Salford, and over the next few years became an expert swimmer. He also became a proficient oarsman and, in addition to various successes at local regattas, he beat David Coombes (son of champion sculler, Robert Coombes) in the Thames Championship for £200, and Ted May (author of Ted May's Useful Little Book) over the same course for £100. He was the head of the famous "Colleen Bawn" crew, who were so named when the proprietor of Queen's Theatre in Manchester gave a prize, on condition that the winning crew became known by the name of his latest theatre production. After marrying, Mark moved across the river to Ordsall in Salford and became the landlord of the Old Boathouse Inn in Everard Street off Ordsall Lane, but due to its close proximity to the river, he continued to carry out a series of rescues. Although in Mark's youth the river was relatively clean, as the Industrial Revolution progressed it became more and more polluted, and indeed when the Suez Canal was opened in 1869, the Irwell was jokingly renamed the "Sewage Canal". However, the increasingly poisonous condition of the river did not seem to deter him from plunging in at a moment's notice:

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