Today, Captain Matthew Webb is the answer to a pub quiz question – “Who was the first person to swim the English Channel?” But during Webb’s lifetime he was a hero of the Victorian age, a man whose brand of manly, dogged persistence and self-belief captured the spirit of the times.
Webb was a famous swimmer long before his Channel swim. He had been second mate on a Cunard Line ship sailing between New York and Liverpool when a fellow sailor went overboard. Webb courageously dived in after him, hoping to save the man’s life. He was unsuccessful – but the newspapers of the day lapped up the story. Webb was awarded the Stanhope Medal by the gloriously named Society for the Recovery of Persons Apparently Drowned, and got a prize of £100.
Webb was born in 1848, and learned to swim in the days when wild swimming was just about the only kind there was. Purpose-built pools were few and far between, but swimming holes in rivers, ponds, lakes and the sea were all increasingly popular. In those days, people swam mostly breaststroke. In 1844 a team of front-crawling American Indians had visited London and soundly defeated the breaststroking “English gentlemen” in a contest. One reporter described the scene:
All this splashing might have been fast, but it was also considered ungentlemanly – indeed “un-European”, said the reports – and it would be 1873 before the Englishman John Trudgen imported front crawl from the USA and popularised the stroke.
That same year, news reached Webb that someone had tried – and failed – to swim the English Channel. He decided this was a swim he should make. Webb gave up his job as a ship’s captain and began training at the Lambeth Baths in London. Soon he moved on to the Thames (and if swimming in the Victorian-era Thames didn’t toughen you up, what would?), then the Channel. By 1875, Webb felt he was ready.
Webb’s first attempt to cross the Channel, on 12 August, failed because a sudden storm blew up a few hours into his swim. On 24 August he tried again, diving in from the end of Dover Pier, smeared in porpoise oil and accompanied by three boats.
If the start from the end of a pier was an attempt to shorten the distance to France, Webb needn’t have worried. He zigged and zagged across the Channel, was stung by jellyfish (and revived by a medicinal dose of brandy) and held back by currents – but after almost 22 hours in the water, he waded ashore near Calais. He had swum 64 km, to complete a straight-line crossing of 34 km.
This tremendous feat made Webb a true Victorian celebrity. He was neither the first nor last to cash in on fame: soon you could buy pottery, a dinner service, books, boxes of matches and all sorts of other Webb-endorsed products. He took part in swimming exhibitions and various water-related stunts: one of the more peculiar was floating in a tank of water for 128 hours. If that sounds a bit David Blaine, bear in mind it won him £1,000.
Webb’s final swim was a treacherous – some said suicidal – attempt to cross the Whirlpool Rapids below Niagara Falls in 1883. Onlookers crowded the vantage points as Webb set off strongly, only to see that “abruptly he threw up his arms and was drawn under”.
His body was recovered downstream four days later, and Webb is buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara. His memorial in his home village of Dawley, Shropshire, reads: “Nothing great is easy.”
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