Mark Addy (Albert Medal) - Later Life

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 (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:

On one occasion Addy was returning from a funeral in a new black suit, with a valuable gold watch in his pocket, when the cry went up "a child is in the river!" Mark rushed to the spot and "without divesting himself of a single garment" plunged in and rescued the child. As he stood dripping, before the crowd of excited onlookers, one said "Mark, tha has spoiled tha clothes." "What of that" came the answer "I reckon it will also have made a mess of my watch, but it does not matter, there was a life in the job at stake."

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 (238 lbs.), so, holding her head out of the water with one hand, he rowed the boat to the bank with the other.