Webb feat remembered in porcelain

AT 10.41 on the morning of August 25, 1875, to the sounds of Rule Britannia, Captain Matthew Webb emerged from the cold and choppy waters of the Channel. It had taken him 21 hours and 41 minutes. He had covered close to 40 miles. But he had become the first man to swim from English to French soil.

Webb, born in the Shropshire mining village of Dawley on January 19, 1848, learned to swim at the ag…

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