Webb was born on January 19, 1848 at Dawley, Telford, in Shropshire, one of twelve children of a Coalbrookdale doctor. While still a boy he saved one of his brothers from drowning in the Severn, and, while serving on board the training ship in the Mersey, he again distinguished himself by saving a drowning comrade.
He acquired his ability to swim in the River Severn at Coalbrookdale. In 1860, at the age of twelve, he joined the training ship HMS Conway for two years, then entered the merchant navy and served a three-year apprenticeship with Rathbone Brothers of Liverpool.
In 1875 Captain Webb abandoned a sea-faring life and became a professional swimmer. On the 3rd of July he swam from Blackwall Pier to Gravesend, a distance of 20 mi. , in 4! hours, a record which remained unbeaten until 1899.
In the same year, after one unsuccessful attempt, he swam the English Channel, on the 24th of August, from Dover to Calais in 21f hours.
For the next few years Webb gave performances of diving and swimming at the Royal Aquarium in London and elsewhere. Crossing to America, he attempted, on the 24th of July 1883, to swim the rapids and whirlpool below Niagara Falls. In this attempt he lost his life.
His final stunt was to be a dangerous swim through the Whirlpool Rapids on the Niagara River below Niagara Falls, a feat many observers considered suicidal. Although Webb failed in an attempt at raising interest in funding the event, on 24 July 1883, he jumped into the river from a small boat located near the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge and began his swim.
Accounts of the time indicate that in all likelihood Webb successfully survived the first part of the swim, but died in the section of the river located near the entrance to the whirlpool. Webb was interred in Oakwood Cemetery, Niagara Falls, New York.
On 27 April 1880, he married Madeline Kate Chaddock, and they had two children, Matthew and Helen.
