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 ...