Edward Johnson Reddish

Edward Johnson Reddish, known professionally as ‘Professor’ Reddish, was an exhibition swimmer, diver and aquatic performer.

Born at West Derby in 1858, he was baptised on 10 October 1858 at St John Chrysostom, Everton, a suburb of Liverpool. His parents were Robert Reddish, a bookkeeper and accountant, and his wife Mary Anne.

At the time of the 1871 census, Edward was a patient in the West Derby Union and Workhouse for the Sick Poor.

He is possibly the ‘Traveller in Pipe Clay’ recorded as 'Edward J. Raddish' who in 1881 was boarding at a house in Toxteth, Liverpool.

His career as an aquatic entertainer appears to have begun at Rhyl in the summer of 1882. By 1888 he was performing with his own troupe in Paris; one report mentions a crowd of 17,000 spectators (Sporting Life, 29 September 1888).

According to an interview he gave the Worthing Gazette (24 May 1905): ‘He was born at Liverpool, and left his native city twenty-two years ago. For eight years he was at Brighton, and then he was absent from that town for nine years, during which period he was busily engaged on the Continent. Then he returned to Brighton, his later stay being of nearly four years’ duration. His admission to the ranks of professional swimmers took place twenty-three years ago, but he had previously won many prizes as an amateur. […] He had a company of from twenty to thirty in number, and comprising both male and female performers, with whom he produced a water pantomime on the Continent, and he holds a patent for Spain for that particular form of aquatic entertainment.’

In 1911 he was boarding at a house in Liverpool. He described himself as a ‘Professional Swimmer.’

Edward Reddish never married. He died, aged 58, in April 1917 at Boscombe near Bournemouth .

According to a short obituary in the Bournemouth Graphic (20 April 1917): ‘The death occurred last week of Professor Reddish, the well-known diver. The feats performed by him from Boscombe Pier invariably attracted large crowds. The deceased, who was 60 years of age [sic], was buried in Boscombe Cemetery.

A longer obituary appeared in the Worthing Gazette (18 April 1917). ‘No professional swimmer was better known than Professor Edward J. Reddish, whose death has just taken place at Boscombe. Born at Liverpool sixty years ago, he had a very interesting professional career. It was declared of him that he knew more about natation than any man living, and that whatever was possible for any man to do in the water he could accomplish. His public displays at Brighton extended over a series of years, and in the summer of 1905 he spent a season at Worthing, giving performances at the Pier head. […] Many honours fell to his lot, attesting both to his skill and his courage. On two occasions he won the Long Distance Swimming Championship of the World, and was the holder of the gold medal of the Life Saving Society of France, the silver medal of the Liverpool Shipwreck and Humane Society, and the Royal Humane Society’s certificate for saving life from drowning. Professor Reddish did a lot of submarine diving, having been engaged upon the important Admiralty work at Dover; and his visits abroad included every European country except Portugal and Switzerland.’

A very short film survives which shows Professor Redding riding a bicycle off the West Pier in Brighton in 1902, with some addition footage of pier divers in 1906. Titled Flying the Foam and Some Fancy Diving, it is available on YouTube.

Photographed by Brown, Barnes and Bell.