Mark Anthony Addy AM (1840 – 9 June 1890) was a publican and champion oarsman, from Manchester, England, who was awarded the Albert Medal (AM), and a number of other honours, for the rescue of over 50 people from the then highly polluted River Irwell in the 19th century.

The Albert Medal was later superseded by the George Cross as the highest civilian or non-combat gallantry award in the British honours system.

[1] Addy was born in 1838 at 2, Stage Buildings, The Parsonage, an Italianate-style tenement on the banks of the River Irwell near Blackfriars Bridge in Manchester, Lancashire.

He had 4 children, Mary Jane (1861-1940), Joseph Henry (1863-1888), Elizabeth (1865-1911), and Ada (1871-1929) and for a brief period of time, he took in his brothers son, Mark Anthony (1856-1899).

In November 1878, Addy received the following letter from the Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli: 10 Downing Street, Whitehall, 6th November, 1878 Sir, The attention of the Sovereign having been called to the repeated acts of heroism performed by you in saving, at the risk of your own life, those of many of her majesty's subjects from drowning in the River Irwell, I have the gratification to inform you that the Queen has been graciously pleased to confer on you, in recognition of your gallantry and daring, the honour and distinction of the Albert Medal of the first class.

Statement of the case of MARK ADDY, to whom the Albert Medal of the First Class has been granted in recognition of his repeated acts of heroism in saving life from drowning in the River Irwell.

MARK ADDY, a well-known oarsman and sculler, has resided all his life on the banks of the polluted River Irwell; his father and brothers having followed the trade of Boat Builders.

During a period of about twenty-five years, he has, under circumstances of imminent peril, both from the violence of the river and the pestilential nature of its waters, saved no fewer than six-and-thirty lives, several of the cases having occurred subsequently to the date of the creation of the said Order.

To see the joy of his brother and sister when I brought him out, to feel their grip around my legs, and to hear them thank me a hundred times, was more to me than all else besides; it was better than the big meeting, and the purse of gold given at the Town Hall[9]According to the National Probate Calendar, Addy left an estate valued at £819, 14s, 3d; a significant sum of money for a working class man at that time and equivalent to around £50,000 in modern terms.

Erected by public subscription.Above the inscription was a carved lifebuoy and rope entwining his initials and, above that, an oval bronze plaque inscribed with the portrait head of Addy.

[13] Because of the large number of subscriptions to the memorial fund a life-size oil portrait of him wearing his medals was commissioned and donated to the Peel Park Picture Gallery, now the Salford Museum and Art Gallery, and a swimming trophy for Salford boys to be presented at Regent Road Baths, the Mark Addy Silver Cup, was instigated.

On the Salford bank of the River Irwell, on the site of the former New Bailey landing stage and the Nemesis Rowing Club, below Stanley Street, is a riverside public house named "The Mark Addy",[14] built in 1981 and re-opened in 2009.