Mark Addy (oarsman)


Mark Addy AM was a publican and champion oarsman, from Manchester, England, who was awarded the Albert Medal, 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 The Albert Medal was later superseded by the George Cross as the highest civilian or non-combat gallantry award in the British honours system.

Early life

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.

Later life

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 in the Thames Championship for £200, and Ted May 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:
In 1872 or 1873 a drunken and mentally unstable woman threw herself in the river in an attempt at suicide. Due to her struggles to fight him off, Mark was almost drowned himself, but despite the cries of onlookers to leave her and save himself, he subdued her and brought her ashore.
On another occasion Addy was roused from his sleep by a boatman who informed him that a woman was drowning in the river. Rushing out in his night-clothes, he rowed out to the woman but was unable to get her into the boat as she weighed over 17 stones, so, holding her head out of the water with one hand, he rowed the boat to the bank with the other.

Awards and honours

In January 1878, before a large crowd of people at Salford Town Hall in Bexley Square, Mark was presented with a loyal address of appreciation by the Mayor of Salford and awarded with a purse of 200 guineas for his heroic deeds, by the people of Salford. Immediately after the ceremony Mr. James Smith, a member of the Humane Society for the Hundred of Salford presented an address and the Gold Medal of the Society to which the members of the nearby Nemesis Rowing Club added a gold clasp as a token of their appreciation. He was awarded a number of other medals including the Silver Medal of the Humane Society for the Hundred of Salford and the Bronze Medal of the Royal Humane Society.
In November 1878, Addy received the following letter from the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli:
Formal notice of the award appeared in the London Gazette of 17 December 1878:
He was presented with the Albert Medal, First Class, by the Mayor of Salford, Alderman Robinson, on behalf of Queen Victoria in the large assembly room of Salford Town Hall in Bexley Square in June 1879.
The medals awarded to Mark Addy, now kept in the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, are as follows:
On Whit Monday, 1889 Addy was watching a procession of children, when he heard a cry that a boy had fallen in the river at the bottom of Factory Lane. He made his way to the place and jumped into a particularly sewage-laden stretch of water to save the boy. Although the rescue was successful, according to an 1890 obituary, "he laid the foundation of an illness that day which eventually gained the mastery of his powerful, well-knit frame" and he died of "consumption" on 9 June 1890 Some time before his death, Mark said:
According to the National Probate Calendar, Addy left an estate valued at £819, 14s, 3d; a significant sum of money for a working class man at that time and equivalent to around £50,000 in modern terms.

Memorials

Not long after his death it was decided that a memorial should be erected and, in May 1891, 1,000 people attended the unveiling of the monument in Weaste Cemetery, Weaste, Salford where he was buried. The monument consisted of a polished red granite obelisk rising from a stepped base. On the front was inscribed:
Above the inscription was a carved lifebuoy and rope entwining his initials and, above that, an oval bronze plaque inscribed with the portrait head of Addy. On the base was another bronze plaque depicting incidents from his life. The monument still stands today and is a Grade II listed structure, although it is in poor condition, with one of the bronze plaques missing.
Because of the large number of subscriptions to the memorial fund a life-size oil portrait of him wearing his medals was commissioned and donated to the Peel Park Picture Gallery, now the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and a swimming trophy for Salford boys to be presented at Regent Road Baths, the Mark Addy Silver Cup, was instigated.
Addy has also been commemorated in a number of other forms: At Woden Street, between Pomona Docks and Regent Road, close to the former location of the Boathouse Inn, is a bridge known locally as the "Mark Addy Footbridge". On the Salford bank of the River Irwell, on the site of the former New Bailey landing stage and the Nemesis Rowing Club, below Stanley Street, is a riverside public house named "The Mark Addy", built in 1981 and re-opened in 2009. However, the pub was badly damaged by Storm Eva in December 2015 and is unlikely to open again.