Above: “Fire Brigadier” from
The Illustrated London News, 1843
Above:Guys in Council from George Cruikshank's
Comic Almanack, November 1838
For I hope you’ve found this brief stroll through the history of fire fighting in London as fascinating as I have. It’s amazing to think how, in some ways, things have changed dramatically, but, in others, such as funding, etc, very little has changed at all. I wish you a fantastic (and safe) bonfire night on November 5th.
~ T.G. Campbell, November 2024.
SOURCES
Image: “Fire Brigadier” from The Illustrated London News, 1843, sourced from Lee Jackson’s Dictionary of Victorian Londonhttps://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
Image:Guys in Council, George Cruikshank's Comic Almanack, November 1838, sourced from Lee Jackson’s Dictionary of Victorian Londonhttps://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
All the Year Round, September 2nd 1865, sourced from Lee Jackson’s Dictionary of Victorian Londonhttps://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
Charles Knight, Knight's London, 1842, sourced from Lee Jackson’s Dictionary of Victorian London https://www.victorianlondon.org/index-2012.htm
Insurance Brigades 1837 to 1884 article from the Museum of Fire website
https://www.museumoffire.net/single-post/insurance-brigades-1837-to-1884
Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act 1865
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/28-29/90/contents
Fire Services Act 1947
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo6/10-11/41/contents
For many in England, November 5th is a night of bonfires and fireworks to mark Guy Fawkes Night and the historical gunpowder plot to destroy parliament. As the rhyme goes: remember, remember, the fifth of November, gunpowder, treason and plot. I see no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot. The practise of making a “Guy,” a dummy filled with straw and dressed in old clothes, to toss onto the bonfire after asking all in sundry for a “penny for the Guy” was honoured in the nineteenth century. As shown in the sketch Guys in Council from the November 1838 issue of George Cruikshank's Comic Almanack (see below). Yet, who did Victorians call upon when the bonfires got out of hand? In this month’s blog, we briefly explore the curious history of fire fighting in London.
According to All the Year Round published in September 1865, “for a period of ninety years there has really been only one statute in operation containing compulsory rules as to fire-engines; and this refers only to the little half-pint, squirts known to us as parish engines. It is to the effect that every parish must keep one large engine and one small, one leathern pipe, and a certain number of ladders.” This was the regulation as far as the government’s responsibility for maintaining and supplying fire-engines up to this point was concerned. Needless to say, it isn’t difficult to see how ineffective these “little half-pint, squirts” would be against a major fire.
That isn’t to say there wasn’t an alternative, however. In 1833, the London Fire-Engine Establishment was formed by ten insurance companies. Namely, Alliance, Atlas, Globe, Imperial, London Assurance, Protector, Royal Exchange, Sun, Union, and Westminster. The aim of the establishment was to pool the companies’ resources to deliver effective fire fighting across London.
Prior to this, each company maintained its own fire-engine and firemen to extinguish the fires of properties the company insured. Unfortunately, they’d only extinguish fires effecting these properties and no one else’s, even if the fire spread to adjoining buildings. Insured properties were identified by a “fire mark” affixed to the building’s façade. The mark consisted of a plaque depicting the logo of the company the property owner had taken out insurance with.
Yet even this didn’t guarantee your property would be saved for, according to the same edition of All the Year Round, “They bought, each company for itself, as many fire-engines as they chose, and paid for as many men as they chose to manage them. When a fire occurred, out rushed these engines, with no paucity of heroic daring on the part of the men. But…the men quarrelled with each other as to precedent claims for reward, and sometimes fought while the flames were blazing.”
In 1842, Charles Knight outlined the structure of the new London Fire-Engine Establishment thus in his publication, Knight’s London:
The affairs of the new Association were placed under the management of a committee, consisting of a Director from each of the associated insurance companies, which subscribe towards its support in certain agreed proportions. London was divided into five districts, which may be briefly indicated thus: - 1st, Eastward of Aldersgate Street and St. Paul's; 2nd, thence westward to Tottenham Court Road and St. Martin's Lane; 3rd, all westward of the 2nd; 4th, South of the river, and East of Southwark Bridge; 5th, South of the river, and west of Southwark Bridge. In these five districts were established engine-stations, averaging about three to each district; at each of which was one, two, or three engines, according to the importance of the station.
The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act of 1865 not only established the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB) but also reclassified firemen as public servants, rather than privately paid employees. It only covered the Greater London area and not the outer boroughs, however. Insurance companies were also expected to contribute financially, still:
Every insurance company that insures from fire any property in [F1Greater London other than the outer London boroughs] shall pay annually to the [F1Greater London Council] by way of contribution toward the expenses of carrying this Act into effect, a sum after the rate of thirty-five pounds in the one million pounds on the gross amounts insured by it, except by way of reassurance, in respect of property in [F1Greater London other than the outer London boroughs] for a year, and at a like rate for any fractional part of a million, and for any fractional part of a year as well as for any number of years for which the insurance may be made, renewed, or continued. The said payments by insurance companies shall be made quarterly in advance, on the first of January, first of April, first of July, and first of October in every year;
It wasn’t until the Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act was repealed by the Fire Services Act of 1947 that further provisions for fire services in Great Britain were introduced. This act also transferred fire-fighting functions from the National Fire Service to fire brigades maintained by county councils and provided further provision for pensions for people employed within the fire services.
LONDON'S BURNING:
A Brief History of Fire Fighting in the Metropolis
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