Talk:History of fire brigades in the United Kingdom

References

Does anyone know of any references to the old brigades and the pre 1974 make up, I used information in the Fire Service College library, but not much to go on and took some sorting through. Anything in the way of other references would be useful. Geotek 01:00, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

You (we) could try the individual FRS webs - some, in their "about us" sections say from what older brigades the current FRS is comprised today. I think it follows that most FRS have absorbed smaller brigades. For eg, London incorporated West Ham, East Ham, Croydon and some other brigades. My guess is that it will be a tricky job. East Ham fire brigade consisted of two (maybe three) stations. Escaper7 07:22, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Article title

I propose moving this article to "Historical fire brigades of the United Kingdom". This would keep it consistent with "Fire service in the United Kingdom" - there was a long discussion here about the use of caps in the title. Escaper7 07:27, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

On second thoughts, how about moving it to "History of fire brigades in the United Kingdom", that would fit better with the intro which could be written something like: The history of fire brigades in the United Kingdom etc etc. It flows better, and seems to fit the format of all other "history of XYZ" articles on Wikipedia. Escaper7 07:33, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I have no problems with re-naming the article to fit standard conventions Geotek 21:14, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

Not much objection to the move, so I'll go ahed as per above. Escaper7 07:13, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

Clarifications

• Southwark City used London County FB
• Westminster City used London County FB

I think they had no option being in the metropolitan area? (Southwark 'City' ?) Also, East Ham CB FB is listed as created they same year the county borough is abolished. This does not seem right? MRSC • Talk 16:36, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

This article seems to full of errors. There was a Metropolitan Fire Brigade from 1865, we have an article about it. There were hundreds of fire brigades in the 19th century, at parish/borough/local board level. It needs a lot of work. Lozleader (talk) 19:19, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, OK, that's a disambiguation page, it is under London Fire Brigade Lozleader (talk) 19:23, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Just having a look at the Fire Services Act 1947. Fire authorities were to be the councils of counties and county boroughs (who could voluntarily combine for fire purposes). So the whole section about various non-county boroughs "using" the county fire brigade can go.Lozleader (talk) 19:52, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

The original information for the article came from several volumes held in the library at the Fire Service College and whilst I tried to collate it all and double check, there may have been some transcription errors. The reasoning behind the various non county boroughs section was that several places which were were permitted to become fire authorities if they had wanted, did not want to go through the process and ceeded it to the county. This would have been like the City of Manchester for example deciding not to become Manchester Fire Brigade but use the services of Lancashire County, hope that explains that bit. As pointed out, prior to WWII there was a mass of brigades and as I didn't have any firm information I left well alone. As for East Ham, from the Wiki page "As a result of popular pressure East Ham sought and obtained county borough status; becoming, in modern terms, a unitary authority on 1 April 1915 and remaining such until 1965 when it was abolished" the table now shows their FB in existence upto 1965. With regard to Southwark and Westminster, the previous statement applies, they were eligible to have their own fire authority status but chose to use London. Thanks for all the work done to improve the article Phil aka Geotek (talk) 13:31, 31 December 2007 (UTC)

Very good. I remember trying to figure out the various police forces that existed in the UK, prioe to wikipedia 9or indeed the Internet). I had pages of notes from various souces, but gaps as well. The pre-1938 fire brigades would take a lot of tracking down, there must have been thousands of them!

Dunno about London, though. The Metropolitan Fire Brigade Act 1865 states On and after the First Day of January One thousand eight hundred and sixty-six the Duty of extinguishing Fires and protecting Life and Property in case of Fire shall within the Metropolis be deemed for the Purposes of this Act to be entrusted to the Metropolitan Board of Works; and with a view to the Performance of that Duty it shall be lawful for them to provide and maintain an efficient Force of Firemen, and to furnish them with all such Fire Engines, Horses, Accoutrements, Tools, and Implements as may be necessary for the complete Equipment of the Force, or conducive to the efficient Performance of their Duties. Maybe Westminster or Southwark vestries could continue to operate a service with the permission of the MWB (and later LCC)? Lozleader (talk) 20:59, 2 January 2008 (UTC)