Page 469 - The_story_of_the_C._W._S._The_jubilee_history_of_the_cooperative_wholesale_society,_limited._1863-1913_(IA_storyofcwsjubill00redf) (1)_Neat

The Fire Brigade*

educational and social side. In 1884 the picnics were established
events. The Manchester emplo3^ees obtained a full Saturday, and
joined with the Crumpsall workers in visiting Liverpool, where the
Merseyside colleagues swelled the party, and all went off in a steam
ferry boat to survey the s.s. Bothnia—that " stately liner " of no
less than 4,500 tons—and picnic at Es^stham. The Heckmondwike
employees reached Blackpool, the Leicester workers went to London,
and the London party discovered a rural retreat (in the words of the
News of that day) in "a quiet watering place on the Essex
coast"—Clacton, to wit. The annual picnics are now shared by
many thousands of employees ; the Manchester hoUday makers have
divided into heroically long and comfortably short distance holiday
makers; while the Society's total contribution under this head in
1912 reached the sum of £1,G21.
The second institution is the fire brigade. The senior division
at Manchester dates from the eighties, and it has grown from 15
to 300 members, the latter total including firemen from Liverpool
to Leeds. Over the whole of England the membership in April,
1913, was 474. All the firemen are employees engaged in their
regular tasks, with the sole exception of the chief ofiicer (now Mr.
G. Eager), who has come from the Manchester Fire Brigade. Yet
there is a thorough drill and equipment. To witness some hundred
and twenty girls, engaged in packing groceries at Manchester,
quit their work in order, and the firemen emerge with hose by
ladders from the street, all within a minute or so from the sounding
of a test-alarm, is to enjoy one of the sights of Balloon Street. The
first annual competition of the brigade was held in 1894. The
year 1912, however, is the greatest in its history. It was then
that, in connection with the Private Fire Brigades' Association
competitions, the championship of the North, with a silver challenge
cup, was won by the C.W.S. Tobacco Factory, while the Bristol
men gained a silver challenge cup, and the Enghsh and Scottish
C.W.S. division at the London tea department achieved the City
of London Corporation challenge shield and also a silver challenge
cup carrjdng with it the championship of the United Kingdom.
An All-England silver challenge shield was won in the previous year
by the C.W.S. West End Shoe Works.

In completing the story of the C.W.S. we must not forget the
visitors to the C.W.S. The industrial revolution, besides divorcing
the worker from his tools, separated the woman at home from all
371