Swindon Fire Brigade

Formed when the wartime National Fire Service was denationalised, 2008 marked the 60th anniversary of the Wiltshire Fire Brigade. Today the county fire service has around 600 fire fighters on roll, a far cry from when a Volunteer Brigade was formed in Swindon in 1879.

With William E. Morris, son of the Swindon Advertiser founder, as Captain, A.H. Meadows Deputy Captain and William Affleck, engineer, the total force numbered just 14.

In 1864 Old Swindon's horse drawn Shand Mason manual pump was housed in Newport Street. Keys to the building were kept at the police station with another set at the Wood Street home of Swindon surveyor William Read.

Meanwhile in New Swindon the GWR Company made their steam pump, used in the works, available for any incidents in the railway village.

However by the 1870s with the old fire engine in a poor state of repair, fire fighting provisions were woefully inadequate.

A proposal to institute a fire fighting force was made at a meeting of the Old Swindon Local Board on May 8, 1879. Mr Reynolds proposed and Mr Edmonds seconded 'That the Board through the Chairman call a Public Meeting at the Town Hall on Wednesday the 21st inst to consider the desireability of forming a Fire Brigade and providing a Fire Escape for the Town.'

A committee of Local Board members was voted in to ascertain the cost of repairing the engine and providing additional hose.

By September things were moving on apace. The committee reported that the fire engine was repaired and in working order and the Royal Society for the Protection of Life confirmed they were ready to provide a fire escape.

The Local Board Clerk was instructed to apply to Messrs Arkell & Son, brewers at Kingsdown, for a piece of land at the end of Victoria Street to be used as a station.

However, this may have been merely a temporary arrangement as less than a year later the Fire Brigade committee recommended a site in the Sands at the entrance to the Quarries for a Fire Engine and Fire Escape Station. Old Swindon Board was asked to contribute £40 towards the cost and an application was made to the New Swindon Board for the same amount.

In 1901 Fire Brigade volunteers were paid 1s (5p) for each drill they attended up to a maximum of 15 drills a year. Horses to pull the fire appliance were hired from the GWR Hotel at a cost of 2s 6d per horse per hour.

In 1907 the Captain at the Cromwell Street Station was John N. Jefferies. His deputy was R.W. Grubb with E.R. Bowering engineer and secretary. W. Eden was the 2nd engineer, G. Selby the foreman and there were 16 firemen.

Records from August 1920 to January 1922 reveal the Brigade had been called out to 16 incidents and seven false alarms. In 2007 Wiltshire Fire Service dealt with over 14,000 emergencies, attending 1,971 fires, 725 road traffic accidents and 370 flooding incidents.

Fire Crew at Cromwell Road dated c1890 and the Drove Road Fire Station pictured in the 1970s courtesy of www.flickr.com/photos/swindonlocal/

My neck of the woods

Did you know that our neck of the woods was once just that - part of a wood, a very big wood? And not just any old wood but a Royal forest no less - Braydon Forest. The origins of Braydon Forest date back to the 9th century and a belt of woodland stretching from the Thame Valley to the Vale of Blackmore and known to the Saxons as Sealwudu. The Saxon lords were pretty easy going, it would appear, and then along came the Normans with their system of forest law, courts and officialdom. Braydon became a royal forest by 1135 and in the 13th century it contained an area of some 46 square miles. The forest bounds included not only woodland but fields of arable, meadow and pasture and even villages such as those of Lydiard Tregoze, Lydiard Millicent and Purton. In 1256, during the reign of Henry III the king gave Robert Tregoze 3 bucks and 8 does from Braydon to restock his park at Lydiard Tregoze and in 1270 John Tregoze obtained a royal licence to 'inclose and impark' his woo...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again ...

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again … Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier Actually, it was the rooms of the Mechanics’ Institute Trust once based at No 1, Milton Road, Swindon, where Mark Sutton, Graham Carter and I first produced the blue print for the Swindon Heritage magazine in 2011. In my dream I was attending a shambolic meeting that roamed across the spacious office accommodation. There I met some of the key characters of this story, although not all of them. Paul Gregory, or was it Noel Beauchamp, it could have been either, Julie Carter and a hot dog vendor (so vivid was the illusion that when I awoke, I had the taste of onions in my mouth). Then there was an on-going, ambulatory talk about saving the Mechanics’ Institute reminiscent of the famous ‘Save the Clock Tower’ scene in the 80s film Back to the Future. This account is rather rambling, isn’t it, but isn’t that the nature of a dream – making perfect sense when you are in it and none at all when you wake up? ...

Edith New - Swindon Suffragette

In 1906 the suffragette campaign entered its most violent phase. Over 500 women had been imprisoned by 1909 and right up there among the militant activists was a Swindon schoolteacher. Edith Bessie New was born 17th March, 1877 at 24 North Street, Swindon, the fourth of Frederic and Isabelle New's five children. Frederic worked as a railway clerk at the GWR Works and Isabelle was a music teacher. An assistant mistress at Queenstown Infant School from 1899-1901, Edith subsequently left her Swindon home to teach in the deprived areas of Deptford and Lewisham. It was after hearing the charismatic Emmeline Pankhurst speak at a meeting in Trafalgar Square that Edith joined the Women's Social and Political Union. In February 1907 a deputation of suffragettes marched on the House of Commons in protest at the omission of votes for women from the King's speech. What had begun as a peaceful demonstration ended in a violent confrontation with police. Edith was among those arr...

Swindon in the Past Lane

Search This Blog