This may be too late and not relevant as in fact he saved lives but this was my great grandfather Charles Starling -
Birmingham Daily Gazette, 1906, reported:
BIRMINGHAM MAN WHO HAS SAVED TEN LIVES
A splendid act of heroism was done yesterday in a dim, out-of-the-way spot of the city of Birmingham.
Landor-street canal is a turgid strip of water typical of the murky realms of labour in which it lies. A number of boys were playing on the bank, and one, a tiny fellow of eight, fell in, and got underneath a boat. The cries of his terrified companions drew the attending of passers-by, who stood by the water’s edge wringing their hands and shouting directions, but the child’s struggles grew feebler and feebler. It seemed that he must drown.
Then suddenly a man dashed up, and fully dressed and encumbered with heavy boots, dived in. He proved a fine swimmer, this brickmaker, from an adjacent field, and the business of saving life is not a new one to him.
The boy was soon out on the bank, little the worse for his adventure.
“Well done, old man” remarked a police officer, as he took note of the particulars.
“It is the tenth Charles Starling has saved,” says a voice
“I’m a bit wet,” was all the hero had to say.
Inquiries confirmed the fact that the man had saved ten lives.
