The Human Fish: The remarkable story of Hull’s Victorian swimming professor

Now & Then, a column by Angus Young

Marcus Bibbero and the golden age of the swimming professor

With his hands tied behind his back and his ankles bound together, Marcus Bibbero plunged into New York’s East River determined to make it third time lucky.

Strong tides had defeated two previous attempts to swim from Brooklyn to Manhattan despite his limbs being held together by lengths of chord.

Launching himself from a pier in the shadow of the nearly-completed Brooklyn Bridge, Bibbero was smothered in goose fat and turpentine to protect him from the cold water.

His aim was to reach Manhattan to help settle a $250 bet between a magazine publisher and a companion over whether he could complete the crossing within three attempts despite being tied up.

A reporter from the New York Times observed: “He disappeared for a moment and then rose to the surface and puffed from his mouth a stream of water a young whale might eject upon reaching the surface.”

After 20 minutes in the river and within ten yards of a landing pier where hundreds of spectators had gathered, the officiating referee ordered Bibbero to be pulled ashore fearing he could get seriously injured by one of many river boats jostling to get the best view.

Some regarded it as another failure but the publisher’s friend agreed to concede and paid out on the bet. Meanwhile, Bibbero received a $100 cut from side-bets placed with the owner of a saloon bar where the original wager had been struck.

His East River exploits in 1882 were typical of a man who started swimming in Hull as a boy and who would go on to become one of Victorian England’s best-known swimming professors.

Born in what is now Poland, he arrived in Hull with his family as a three-month-old to settle as first-generation Jewish emigrants. He would later claim he was born in 1821 but family records suggest a much later date in 1837.

One of 13 children, it seems the young Bibbero’s athletic talents developed at an early age and he was soon taking part in swimming displays and athletic competitions.

In an interview in The Globe newspaper shortly before his death, he recalled his first major success – winning a live pig in a contest for walking a greasy pole.

“In my childhood simplicity, I took the pig home and you can imagine the reception I received from my parents.

“They turned me out. However, I sold the pig to a butcher for seven shillings. My parents took the money.”

Originally given the Hebrew name Mordecai, Bibbero was known as Marcus as he grew up in Hull. However later he would refer to himself as Marquis, giving a deliberately aristocratic touch to his many public appearances as a swimmer, theatrical performer, lecturer and author.

In his youth Bibbero developed as both a strong swimmer and a skilled boxer, switching between the two sports to earn his keep through bets on the outcome of his contests.

He would remain up for an impromptu swimming or boxing challenge well into old age providing his opponent was of a similar age.

A newspaper advert from 1863 reveals the first clues to his later career. It lists him as co-manager of a outdoor show being staged in Leeds featuring “Old English sports and gymnastics” including egg and sack racing. Also on the bill was a hot air balloon ascent and fireworks provided by a Mr Neaman of Hull.

In the same year Bibbero also appeared on the bill of a touring theatrical show, performing tricks in a tank of water such as drinking milk while fully submerged.

The headline act was a newly-invented illusion using reflections from a hidden glass plate to create a ghost-like image on stage.

When the show reached Hull, a reporter from the Eastern Counties Herald who had previously criticised the trick ended up being the victim of what was later described in court as a “ferocious and cowardly assault” on leaving the venue.

Bibbero was arrested and charged with punching the reporter but was eventually acquitted after no witnesses could be found.

However, in his later interview in The Globe, he recalled a similar incident at a London music hall in which a stranger made derogatory remarks about his Jewish heritage.

“I said: ‘If you don’t apologise, I will drum you’.” The man refused and Bibbero carried out his threat, receiving a two-month prison sentence for the assault.

Over the next few years, he refined his stage show which became known as The Drowning Man. Theatre audiences around the country would marvel at the spectacle of Bibbero appearing to recover from near death after spending a prolonged period of time floating face down in the illuminated tank.

In the early 1870s he moved to Manchester and started to add the title of professor to his billing. Before the advent of the sport’s first governing body, self-styled swimming professors held sway.

They gave lessons, staged public displays and raced against each other usually for prize money. It was the perfect platform for Professor Bibbero to launch his own swimming club in Bolton in 1872, which still exists today.

Like his fellow professors, Bibbero not only used swimming pools such as Madeley Street and East Hull baths in Hull for regular lessons and aquatic exhibitions, he also performed in more natural surroundings.

In Bolton, he encouraged club members to swim in water pools used by the town’s mills and later led a display of ornamental swimming in the newly-opened Manchester Ship Canal.

In Hull, he staged a gala featuring 100 swimmers in Victoria Dock’s timber ponds before embarking on a one-mile swim in the Humber with his arms and legs shackled as crowds watched from Corporation Pier.

In Scarborough, he performed a similar swim across the resort’s North Bay while appearing in a summer show at the town’s aquarium in a show billed as The Human Fish.

In London, he raced between bridges on the Thames with his arms and legs bound together as bets were exchanged on the riverbank over his progress.

By the time Bibbero had just about conquered New York’s East River, he was also helping Captain Matthew Webb prepare for an attempt to swim the infamous Whirlpool Rapids under Niagara Falls.

After becoming the first person to swim the English Channel in 1875, Webb was an international celebrity with a best-selling book and a string of merchandising deals to his name.

Many observers regarded the rapids as being far too dangerous and they were proved right. Webb died in his bid to swim them but Bibbero, who had accompanied him on the trip, subsequently announced he would try too.

Ultimately, the authorities at Niagara intervened by threatening to arrest him on a charge of attempting suicide. It was enough to persuade him to back down.

Instead, he returned to England to continue his role as a swimming professor, performer and lecturer on life-saving techniques as well as a new swimming stroke which he claimed to have invented.

Like Webb, he also wrote about swimming in three books and ventured into the new world of commercial sponsorship by providing a testimony for a popular lung tonic produced in his hometown of Hull by chemists W.T. Owbridge.

“I think it is my duty to let Bathers know how valuable a medicine it is for the cure of colds. I have found invaluable benefit from it and could not carry on my profession without it,” ran his quote below an illustration of the company’s best-selling product in newspaper adverts seen around the world.

It appears he also continued to promote his links with Webb. What is believed to be the first photograph of Bibbero taken in 1890 shows him posing in his swimming costume above the caption: “Professor Marquis Bibbero, trainer of Captain Webb”.

It was used in a series of collectable tobacco cards, ironically produced by fitness magazine Health & Strength, to which he often contributed articles.

Age did not appear to slow Bibbero down. As a new century dawned he became a regular sight in Dover where he held training sessions for would-be Channel swimmers, often singing loudly from an accompanying rowing boat to keep their spirits up.

He even proposed swimming the crossing himself and completed several ten-mile training swims before presumably reluctantly acknowledging a much longer effort was beyond him.

Even so, in 1908 he celebrated his golden wedding by staging a swimming display from a raft in the sea off Dover.

Bibbero died two years later in a London hospital after a short illness. As one of the last of his kind, his death also marked the end of the golden age of the swimming professor.