Captain Matthew Webb became the first person to swim the English Channel unaided in 1875, taking 21 hours and 45 minutes. His feat, which turned a planned 21-mile distance into nearly 39 miles due to tides and weather, is now the subject of a one-man show at the Edinburgh festival.
A theatrical retelling of Webb's feat
The Captain, running through August, is performed by comedian Adam Riches. He narrates Webb's story in the persona of Fred Beckwith, the promoter who helped Webb train at Lambeth Baths. The show's audience is invited to chant "Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide" in a communal exercise that evokes the swimmer's endurance.
Riches previously created a one-man show about Jimmy Connors' 1991 US Open run. The Captain focuses on a less explosive kind of sporting endurance, telling the story of Webb without ever meeting the hero himself.
Swimming's Victorian revival
Before Webb, swimming was not widely practised in Europe. Leonardo da Vinci's 16th-century notebooks mused on how man ought to learn to swim, and Lord Byron crossed the Hellespont in 1810 to prove a point. By the 1830s, informal lake races were being organised by the National Swimming Society, and artificial pools were opening in London.
Webb's near-fatal Channel crossing popularised the pastime significantly. His example inspired others, including Agnes Beckwith, Fred's daughter, who set long-distance records swimming 20 miles of the Thames from Westminster to Richmond and back to Mortlake.
Legacy in Olympic and endurance swimming
Olympic swimming owes Webb a debt: the first modern Games in 1896 held races in the Mediterranean Sea, where athletes faced frigid temperatures and 13ft waves. After winning gold in the 1200m, 18-year-old Alfréd Hajós said "my will to live completely overcame my desire to win".
Gertrude Ederle's 1926 crossing, the fastest in its day and the first by a woman, became as well known as Webb's. Her memory inspired Lynne Cox, the first woman to cross the Cook Strait and the first human to traverse the Bering Strait between the US and the Soviet Union.
A cautionary end
Webb died at 35, chasing fame and fortune that never lasted. In this content-driven age, sport is often consumed as fleeting entertainment, but its sense of physical science and human progress speaks at a deeper level. Webb's ghost later inspired a poem by John Betjeman, and his story remains a testament to doing what everyone but him believed humanly impossible.
