Mark Addy (Albert Medal) - Death

Death

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" (tuberculosis) on 1890-06-09 Some time before his death, Mark said:

Yes, it is true I have saved many lives, but the best work I ever did was saving that little lad on Whit Monday. I think more about that than all the rest. To see the joy of his brother and sister when I brought him out, to feel their grip around my legs, and to hear them thank me a hundred times, was more to me than all else besides; it was better than the big meeting, and the purse of gold given at the Town Hall

Read more about this topic:  Mark Addy (Albert Medal)

Famous quotes containing the word death:

    What I call middle-class society is any society that becomes rigidified in predetermined forms, forbidding all evolution, all gains, all progress, all discovery. I call middle-class a closed society in which life has no taste, in which the air is tainted, in which ideas and men are corrupt. And I think that a man who takes a stand against this death is in a sense a revolutionary.
    Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)

    Our treatment of both older people and children reflects the value we place on independence and autonomy. We do our best to make our children independent from birth. We leave them all alone in rooms with the lights out and tell them, “Go to sleep by yourselves.” And the old people we respect most are the ones who will fight for their independence, who would sooner starve to death than ask for help.
    Margaret Mead (1901–1978)

    I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.
    Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)