Page 39 - Fire Services Journal 2018

The engines and matériel were supplied by the head office of a company.
The firemen
The advent of the insurance fire brigades gave Ireland something that it had never had before: an organised approach to fire suppression.
As reliance on the decrepit parish pumps (the manual fire engines maintained, by law, by the Established Church) diminished, the insurance brigades acquired a certain status as quasi-public institutions, with their firemen regarded as holding a kind of public office.
The firemen were under the direct control of a brigade’s foreman or engineer, who, in turn, answered to the agent. The firemen were usually part-time, and were hired on the explicit understanding that, on receipt of an emergency call, they would (and could) leave their place of work immediately and make straight for the company’s ‘engine house’ or fire station. This system of part-time service still exists today as the County Fire Service.
These brigades—known as ‘retained’ brigades— are largely made up of personnel who make their living outside of the fire service. Only senior staff and key personnel are career officers.)
General employees of the insurance offices, such as porters, messengers, etc., also acted as part-time firemen. The engineer, who looked after the engines and premises, lived on or near to a company’s fire station. The engineer and foreman (sometimes the posts were amalgamated) were full-time employees, proficient in elementary hydraulics, pump operation and fire- fighting techniques.
They were selected by the directors for their leadership qualities: on—and off— the fire ground their word was law.
The offices required a substantial bond from prospective firemen (some offices insisted on sums up to £100), ‘the bond of themselves and two respectable citizens for their good conduct and faithful discharge of the trust reposed in them’. In spite of this, there appears to have been no difficulty in filling positions.
Panels were set up whence vacancies were filled. The competition for places was so fierce that the offices could hire only the best men. Each man was obliged to provide the names of two sponsors, one of whom was usually his full-time employer, the other some well-known man of affairs.
HISTORY
EARLY 19TH CENTURY FIRE ENGINES EN ROUTE TO A CONFLAGRATION. A WILY SURGEON-CUM-BUSINESSMAN NAMED NICHOLAS BARBON FIRST REALISED THE POTENTIAL OF FIRE INSURANCE IN THE WAKE OF THE GREAT FIRE OF LONDON IN 1666.
Origins in the Great Fire of London, 1666
The fire-fighting methods and equipment of modern times were first conceived in the vast acres of ash that was London after the Great Fire of 1666, when a surgeon-cum- businessman named Nicholas Barbon realised the potential of fire insurance. The only insurance available up to then was marine insurance, whereby a ship and its cargo would be insured for a particular voyage. This was an altogether different matter to insuring premises, year in, year out, against the hazard of fire, an all too frequent occurrence about which no one needed reminding. As there was no previous experience of fire insurance, nobody knew just how much capital would be required in order to roll out such a venture. How much would be needed to settle claims? The wily Barbon, mathematician supreme, had it all worked out. Launching his company in London, he offered to insure the citizens against loss by fire in return for premiums set according to the quality and size of their homes or businesses: 21⁄2% for brick houses and 5% for timber. Initially the venture was known simply as ‘the Fire Office’; later the name ‘Phoenix’ was adopted. Other businessmen, stimulated by Barbon’s success, soon appeared on the scene. But Barbon had one more trick up his sleeve. Not only did he ruthlessly undercut the premiums of his competitors but he also made a decision that proved to be one of the defining moments in fire-fighting history. He would provide his customers, he announced, with a
‘. . . group of men versed and experienced in extinguishing and preventing fires . . . servants in livery with badges who are watermen and other lusty persons who are always ready when any such fire happens, while they are very laborious and dextrous at quenching and not sticking in cases of necessity to expose themselves to very great hazards in their attempts’.
The first organised fire-fighting body these islands had seen since the days of the splendid Roman vigiles, some 1,200 years before, had come into existence. The fierce competition for their fair share of the fire insurance market compelled new companies entering the field to set up their own fire brigades, which they called ‘fire engine establishments’. They were not to know that they were saddling themselves with an expensive responsibility, with ‘establishments’ scattered the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland (including, in the course of time, units in Belfast, Cork, Derry, Dublin, Limerick and Waterford), that would continue to plague them for nigh on 200 years.
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