# Talk:Matthew Webb

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Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I removed the following, but it was then reinserted and I removed it again -
An episode of the Peabody's Improbable History segment in the TV cartoon series Rocky and His Friends featured the first swim across the Channel. Oddly, the character was referred to as Captain Clift. That set up an ending joke about the "White Clifts of Dover", but left the name change unexplained. It could be an inside joke, as the actor Clifton Webb was said to be the inspiration for the Peabody character. 

Please, of all the possible references in popular culture, this must be one of the most uninteresting. A character's name in a segment of some 40 year old cartoon that lasts about 5 minutes. Most people outside of the USA will have never heard of Rocky and Bulwinkle and are uniliky to come to this page to find out about it. Put it in the Rocky an Bulwinkle article, not here. Jooler 02:23, 7 May 2006 (UTC)
Where is the page on Matthew Webb the famous salesman gone, I saw that it was a stub, and obviously hadn't been completed yet but surely that's no need to have it removed.

That article was deleted as an autobiographical vanity page for a non-notable person. - Bobet 13:39, 13 October 2006 (UTC)
It isn't an autobiographical vanity page though????  How dare you describe it as vain!!!!

Ya, I'm sure it was written by some other totally unrelated Mattwebb24, that knew a lot about his personal life but couldn't provide any information about how the person was notable. This Matthew Webb should really be careful about his namesake stalker. - Bobet 14:28, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

I'm certain this was written by A E Housman and not John Betjemen. I'll change it if it checks out Plutonium27 18:47, 11 August 2007 (UTC)
Whilst Housman undobtedly wrote a cycle calles "A Shropshire Lad", Betjeman seems to have 'stolen' the title for a single poem.  Try http://www.geoffwilkins.net/fragments/Betjeman.htm for JB reading his own poem to an accompaniment of brass music.-- which I have just discovered is linked from the Wikipedia Betjeman page.  81.139.128.179 13:16, 13 August 2007 (UTC)

There's also Matt Webb, does this mean there needs to be a disambiguation link? 86.20.232.204 (talk) 14:28, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Can anyone find a reference or dates to show if Captain Webb trained weekly in Hollingworth Lake, Littleborough?90.218.48.243 (talk) 19:17, 25 March 2009 (UTC)

What is the Stanhope Medal? Drutt (talk) 19:56, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Given for lifesaving. It was named after a relative of the earls of chesterfield[1][2]. I'm not sure if he or the medal are notable. I can find no other reference to them on WP. Drutt (talk) 18:19, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Can we find nothing better than a cariacture for the portrait? 217.20.20.85 (talk) 15:12, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

There are two photographs from 1883 of him online here, which might be copyright free... Quite likely that the photographer of these has been dead for at least 70 years. The library seems to claim copyright for scanning them from an historical newspaper, but that claim has no basis in copyright law.--Feuerrabe (talk) 12:35, 18 November 2010 (UTC)
That link doesn't work as is.  Here is a working version of the link to your search at the Niagara Falls Public Library. -- ToE 20:14, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

"Early life and career" section says "In the summer of 1863, while at home, he rescued his 12 year old brother Thomas from drowning in the Severn near Ironbridge".  This means that Thomas is a YOUNGER brother of Matthew, who should have been 15 then.  Meanwhile, "Legacy" section says "In 1909, Webb's ELDER brother Thomas unveiled a memorial in Dawley" (my emphasis).  Was Thomas a younger or elder brother to Matthew ?  Or, were there two brothers both named Thomas, maybe with different middle names ?--山田晴通 (talk) 07:32, 4 September 2013 (UTC)

Noting here that Swimming Notes and Record, 1884 and Royal Humane Society Annual Report, 1874 contain information on Webb's Stanhope Medal attempted rescue (referenced in Webb's entry in the Dictionary of National Biography), but these sources are hard to retrieve. It is a wonderful world (talk) 21:49, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

There are several references in Captain Webb's history to occasions happening in e.g. 1979 when the dates should be showing e.g. 1879!  2603:9001:6C00:632E:44D3:B4C5:8BE7:6F24 (talk) 04:09, 17 July 2024 (UTC)

You are correct. This was my mistake, just a simple typo. I have fixed it now. Next time though, go ahead and fix it yourself! This is the reason anyone can edit. If you see a mistake, fix it! It is a wonderful world (talk) 19:04, 20 July 2024 (UTC)

Who was "Mr R. H. Horne MP"? I cannot identify him. DuncanHill (talk) 18:20, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

The name and title is explicitly mentioned in the first reference, however I could not find him either. The earliest source that mentions this is Williams 1884, which is also cited, however this source does not refer to him as an MP.
With further research I just did, based on this letter it looks like the first reference made a mistake and he was not actually an MP. I have removed the title "MP".
Thank you for this great catch and all the other fixes. It is a wonderful world (talk) 08:42, 8 September 2024 (UTC)
My pleasure. We have an article Richard Henry Horne. DuncanHill (talk) 11:33, 8 September 2024 (UTC)

Re. John Betjeman's 1940 NME single of the week "A Shropshire Lad":
That reads oddly: presumably the poem was written in 1940 (the given sources don't specify) but the NME didn't come along until 1952. And it's primarily a poem, despite Betjeman's recording an instrumentalised version of it in the 1970s. Moscow Mule (talk) 12:43, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Nice catch, I missed that the sources don't support the 1940 date, so I removed it.
[145] says "Hearing him try to mimic a Midlands accent on A Shropshire Lad is good for a laugh. He sounds more like he's from West Yorkshire. Or West Virginia. But that track still made single of the week in the NME when it was released."
Am I interpreting this wrong, or is the source just flat out wrong?
Either way, I think it should just be changed to John Betjeman's poem "A Shropshire Lad". Would you agree? It is a wonderful world (talk) 16:49, 30 October 2024 (UTC)
Thanks for the kind reply. Googling reveals the poem was included in a 1940 collection, fwiw. And reference 145 works: Betjeman reading the poem was issued on a single in 1974, and there's no reason to dispute the NME choosing it as its single of the week. But that's a bit secondary, a bit trivial, w/r/t the poem in book form. I was thinking of something along the lines of your suggested rewording and losing the NME mention all together (but wasn't feeling particularly bold at the time). Go for it. Moscow Mule (talk) 17:14, 30 October 2024 (UTC) Bonus: presumably this is the recording in question. And no, I didn't make it to the end.
Looks like someone did it for me! (neither did I reach the end of that recording...) It is a wonderful world (talk) 19:51, 30 October 2024 (UTC)

Why is there no mention in "Legacy" of Webb's depiction on matchboxes? I was born in 1969, so many homes still had coal fire and lots of people smoked, so when I was a kid practically every house had matchboxes, and most of those were Bryant & May matchboxes which had Captain Webb on the box, commemorating his channel swim. I don't think it would be an exaggeration to say literally every schoolchild in the UK in about 1975 knew who he was and what he did for this reason alone. I never knew why they had him on there.

Hello @148.252.214.220, it may be something I missed in my research. There is not reason not to include it if there is good sourcing available? If you can find some, I'll happily integrate it into the article. IAWW (talk) 14:34, 8 May 2025 (UTC)