London's river fire service and its fire-floats. 1904-1937.

The London Fire Brigade was officially given that title on the 1st April 1904. Although to the vast majority of ordinary Londoner's it was the name by which the brigade had been more popularly known for some considerable time. London's fire brigade, the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, with Capt. Eyre Massey Shaw as its first Chief Officer, had been established by an Act of Parliment, so it took another Act of Parliment to have the former name changed.

The MFB's fire tug and float. A steam fire engine was carried on a barge and towed to the fire by a tug.

On land the first turntable ladder was introduced into the brigade in 1905. They were horse drawn, and when being driven through the streets they were on longer the brigade's wheeled escape ladder carts but could reach a height of 85 feet when fully extended. These new ladders were self supporting and did not not need to lean against a building. With a monitor fitted to the top of ladder its use as a water tower soon made the turntable ladder an important addition to the brigade's appliance fleet. Some of its other engines had already made their presence felt. The self-propelled steam engine was first seen on London's streets in 1902. By 1904 twelve had been purchased and allocated to selected London fire stations. Weighing in at five and half tons each the steam driven 'Fire Kings' had a top speed of 25 miles per hour on the flat but slowed to a crawl when climbing a steep incline. The self-propelled did not bring to an end the days of the horse drawn fire engines, but it was the beginning of the end.

Fire-floats were not new to the River Thames. They had been in use since before the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was formed in 1866. The Insurance Companies funded the London Fire Engine Establishment and they had large rowing boats with manual pumps which to attack large riverside fires. But it was the Brigade's Chief, Capt. Wells (a former Royal Naval officer) how drew and designed a shallow draft fire-float, one based on a Royal Navy gunboat. Placed into service the ALPHA set the new benchmark for the Brigade's river fire-flaots. Wells was followed by another Naval officer, Capt. Hamilton (later Rear Admiral) who in 1906 got the London County Council (LCC) to approved the purchase of a larger, more powerful, fire-float, the Beat II. The vessel was almost 100 feet long, 16 1/2  feet wide and had a draft of 3 feet. Its cost, at £11,000, riased some eyebrows with the Members of the LCC's Fire Brigade Committee but the LCC approved the purchase.

London Fire Brigade fire-float Beta II.

Built by Forrest and Co, the Beta II was fitted with twin screw emgines and two water tube boilers. It made the vessel capable of steaming along at the rate of ten to eleven miles an hour under normal conditions.The fire-float was fitted with four pumps, supplied by Shand Mason of Blackfriars, each one capable of discharging one thousand gallons per minute at a pressure of one0hundred and forty pounds  per square inch. When commissioned in 1909 the Beta II was stationed at Cherry Garden Pier in Rotherhithe, on the south bank of the Thames. The Beta would be followed by Gamma II two years later. Built by Thorneycroft and Co the Gamma was the brigade's first motorised engine fire-float.

The funeral procession of Shaw from the Southwark HQ.

In 1908, now Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, died at his Folkstone home on the 25th August. Shaw had been instrumental in bringing many innovative ideas in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. He had retired in the early days of the LCC after not seeing eye to eye with the LCC's Fire Brigade Committee or its ways. In his thirty years service he had increased the number of river stations and had established more efficient fire tugs and barges. His passing brought out London's public in force. People lined the streets to pay their respects to one of London's characters and its hero's. Shaw was buried in Highgate Cemetery on the 29th August.

The LCC, as the London wide 'county' authority, it was discharging the administrative duties formerly carried out by the Metropolitan Board of Works and had greatly developed them. The LCC had taken control of the Brigade on the 21st March 1889. In addition to enhancing London's fire brigade it embarked on a wide ranging programme of London wide improvements. It carried through a number of major London street improvements, including creating the Albert Embankment which would be the location of a new fire brigade headquarters and river fire station eventually. The LCC oversaw the building of six bridges over the Thames and construction vehiculat and pedestian tunnels at Blackwall, Rotherhithe, Greenwich and Woolwich.

The increasing range and scale of the LCC's dutied added considerably to the size of its staff and budget. In 1891 the total number of its employees was 3,700. by the mid-1930s the corresponding figure was 78,000, and its annual expenditure rose from less than £2 million in its early years to £37 million. The Fire Brigade Committee of the LCC had already made significant changes to the way the fire brigade recruited its firemen. The practice of only recruiting former sailors, Royal Navy or merchant seamen, was discontinued. New station where being increasingly built by the LCC and new equipment purchases made. In the note book of the Clerk to the Council, he recorded the brigade's fire-float disposition in 1908 as;

• The Alpha lies at the river station by Blackfriars Bridge.
• The Beta is kept at the Cherry Garden Pier, where also a tug is moored.
• At Battersea there is a tug and two rafts.
• At the Charing Cross fire-float repair depot there are two tugs and two rafts.
• A stores barge is kept at each river station. The firemen are able to get away with their floats in from six to ten minutes.

The Alpha at work at Thames blaze.

The Cherry Garden river station. Rotherhithe.

The increases in LCC staffing were also reflected in its fire brigade. (Although the actual conditions of its firemen remained a matter of serious concern for the men themselves.)

By 1913 the LCC had ensured that the Brigade's fire-float fleet had increased to four purpose built vessels. The  MFB's Alpha had been added to by the Beta II, this was followed by the GammaII and then the Delta II. These four fire-floats provided the backbone of the brigade's river service for almost 20 years. Both the Alpha and Beta II boats were moored at Blackfriars; the Gamma II and the Delta II fire-floats stationed at Cherry Garden Pier and Battersea Bridge respectively.

Delta II.

 Tragedy struck at the Battersea river station in 1916 when Fireman George Cobbold, aged 29, fell off the Delta II into the river and was drowned. George Cobbold had been an Able Seaman in the Merchant Navy and had joined the brigade in 1911. His first two years were spent at the Vauxhall fire station and by 1913 he had been appointed a 1st class fireman woth a pay increase from £1. 5s. 0d. to £1. 8s. 6d a week. He was moved first to Clapham, then Sydenham fire stations during 1913, subsequently being transferred to the Floating Station No 96-Battersea in February 1914. As a non-reservist Cobbold was not called back to the 'colours' on the outbreak of World War 1 in August 1914 but continued to serve on the fire-float. He died on August 24th.

The First World War. 1914-1918.

World War One or the 'Great War' was declared on the 28th July 1914. The first impact of the outbreak of that war was felt ny the London Fire Brigade during the following month of August and the calling up of all reservists.

From its pre-war strength of 1,251 men some 280 army and navy reservists were called back to the 'colours'. In addition another 120 others volunteered to fight and joined the armed forces. The brigade was 400 men short by October 1914. It had lost over one third of its operational strength. This sudden depletion adversly affected both the land and river stations operational ability. The LCC and brigade senior officers were concerned about the impact that the departure of so many men would have in the event of enemy air raids. This was not a view shared by cenral Government who held to their belief that the risks of aerial attack was not considered to a serious one. For nine months the Government's view appeared sound. Then the first air raid took place on the 18th May 1915 at about 11 a.m. The targets were north and east London. Four people were killed and thirteen were injured.

In the four years following a total of 25 raids occurred over London, the 23 raid, on the 17th February 1918, left 1,000 premises damaged and the widespread firefighting operations had involved all the brigade's fire-floats on the Southwark side and along the south London riverbank. 15 people were also killed in the Euston Road when the Midland Grand Hotel was bombed. The last raid happened on the 25th March 1918. Seven bombs were dropped resulting in the deaths of 19 people whils 39 were injured. The bombing raid concentrated on north London, and whilst there was no involvment for the fire-floats, firemen rescued one woman using their hook ladders.

The Victoria Embankment, viewed from the Thames.

The highest single casualty rate involving a fire, one not caused bt enemy action, occured on the 30th January 1918. Seven London firemen lost their lives at a fire on the Albert Embankment, Lameth. It was the highest death toll in the history on the brigade. (It remains so until the present day.) The fire involved an animal feed warehouse and whilst damping down the upper part of the building collapsed with fatal consequences. The firemen who died came from the Vauxhall, Kenniungton Road and Clapham fire stations. (The site of the disaster who in the 1930s become the new headquarters building of the brigade.)

Compared with the air raids that were to follow in 1940/41 and rockets attacks on London in 1944 those in the years of 1915-1918 seem trivial. Of the 1, 415 people killed in the United Kingdom during those years, 670 perished in the London area. In the four years of the Great War conflict, both in London and around the country, casualt figures on the home front, caused by enemy action, was eceptionally light. Light compared to the horrendous slaughter of the ten of millions killed on all sides in the trenches and the battlefield.

A new fire-float. Beta III.

In 1926 a new fire-float joined the brigade's river fleet, the Beta III. The days of the fire tugs and barges had long since been consigned to the history books and the new craft replaced the aged Alpha and the Beta II. Her top speed was ten knots. Built by Merryweather and Sons, her hull was made of British steel and her deak laid in teak. She would serve London admirably until the early 1950s.

In 1928 the Daily Telegraph published an account, in glowing terms, of the work of the London Fire Brigade at a massive warehouse blaze in Bermondsey. At the hearth of this labyrinth of south London warehouses, in the shadow of Tower Bridge, the fire took hold and engulfef the building, a six floored store containing peanuts, coconuts, beans and cereals.

Beta III. 

Fate was not on the side of the firemen tackling the blaze. They required the assistance of a fire-float to add weight to support their attack on the inferno. There was a painful wait for the Thames to rise so that St Saviours Dock was again navigable. Once positioned Beta III's monitor, that resembled an artillery canon, directed 1,500 gallons a minute into the conflagation limiting any further spread of fire. A scorching mass of peanuts, freshly roasted, showed red through the roof, but the flames soon subsided to a few sullen flickers. The Telegraph quoted an observer to the dramatic happening who said; "scores of burnt out rats scurried into the river to seek refuge from the flames." The surrounding streets of Bermondsey flowed with the resultant mix of the warehouse's contents and the firemen's water. It looked like a thin pea-soup.

The Thames Flood. 1928.

On the 7th January 1928 the Thames flooded much of central London.The flood had fatal consequence. It was the last time the centre of London has been under such widespread water. It was just after midnight that the swollen river bursts its banks. Most Londoners were sleeping as the Thasmes floodwaters forced its way into the rich and famous homes as well as subsuming many of the city's narrowest slum streets, close to the river, inder 4fy of foul river water.

The Houses of Parliment, the Tate Gallery and the Tower of London were all swamped and the basements and cellars filled to the brim and more. So too. tragically, were many of the crowded basement dwellings into which the city's poorestfamilies were crammed. 14 people were drowned in the cold winter water and thousands were left homeless, meagre possessions ruined.

The river poured over the embankments at Southwark, Lambeth, Temple Pier and the Houses of Parliament, where Old Palace Yard and Westminster Hall were quickly flooded. The river firemen rushed to take charge of their fire-floats lest they pulled from the morrings or the pontoons rise so high that the pontoon and the fire-floats were carried away on the flood water. "It came like a waterfall over the parapet and into the space at the foot of Big Ben;" so write the Times correspondent. The moat of the Tower of London was filled for the first time in 80 years. The Blackwall and Rotherhither tunnels were both under water. There was extensive flooding around Victoria Embankment Gardems, Charing Cross Station and where the fire-float Gamma II was kept at Blackfriars. "The Royal Naval Reserve training ship President floated at street level;" reported the Manchester Guardian.

The first sections of the river bank walls to give way were at Millbank, adjacent to the Tate Gallery. Despite its close proximity to the River Thames, many of the gallery's works were stored underground in the lower ground floor. 18 works of art were damaged beyond repair, anither 226 oil paintings were badly damaged and many others slightly damaged. However, the most serious devastation and death was in the working class areas that backed onto the river. What the Times described as the "many narrow little streets, courts and alleys, reministent of Shakespeare and his times" between Southwark and Blackfriars bridges' were flooded, as was the Bankside area. Police went door to door urging residents to leave. Many of them were taken away on carts. "The water was rising so quickly that many who were roused from their sleep simply threw a blanket around their shoulders and made their escape in their night attire," the Times reported.

Worst affected were the slums on the Westminster side of Lambeth Briage, where 10 of the 14 victims lost their lives. The majority of the people who died were poor, people living in crowded basements. Thet had little, or no, time to escape death. At one of the subsequent Inquests a man named Alfred Harding identified the bodies of his four daughters, aged between 2 and 18. A sperate Inquest heard how two domestic servants were drowned in similar circumstances in abasement room they shared in Hammersmith. The Coroner, Mr H R Oswald, said they had been " caught like animals in a trap, drowned before they realises their position."

The floodinf occurred as far west as Putnet and Richmond. It was the highest levels the Thames had witnessed for 50 years. The high tides caused by a depression in the North Sea which sent a storm surge up the tidal river. What made the relief effort all the harder was thast London had already suffered extensive flooding in the days leading up to the 7th. The Brigade's Chief Officer, Arthur Dyer, had committed his whole brigade to assist in the relief and rescue efforts. For some of the riverside stations of Bermondsey, Rotherhithe, Pageants Wharf and Whitefrairs they were themselves caught up in the need to evacuate the lower levels of their respective stations and keep their familes on the upper floors.

The Brigade's coldest fire. 1931.

The weather forecast for Saturday, 7th March told of  "moderate or fresh east or north-east winds, bright intervals, snow showers and very cold. At the Southwark headquarters of the Brigade firemen read forecast, looked up the chilling grey sky and wondered why they chose a career that made them get up on such a morning. In a warehouse at Butler's Wharf, near London Bridge, a fire was in its infancy. Shortly after 10 a.m. the Brigade was called as a pall of black smoke hung over Shad Thames. As the brass helmeted firemen scrabbled onto their engines and boarded the fire-float thier breathe condensed in the cold morning air.

Soon the acrid burning rubber from the blazing warehouse was stinging the firemens nostrils. As the Gamma II and Beta III ploughed their way towards the wharf crowds gathered to watch the specticle. Firemen got to work attacking the fire from the street and the adjoining premises, they even used the cargo ship 'Teal' as a standing platform. In charge of the operations was the Chief Officer, Arthur Dyer and also on hand were the men of the London Salavge Corps under their chief, Capt Miles. The firemen managed to confine the blaze to the single warehouse but ir was a long time before the last flame was quenched. All day it burned and into the afternoon farkness when powerful searchlights were brought into action.

Shad Thames-7th March 1931

Compared with other conflagations of the day this fire was not very large. But it was the unbelievably cold conditions that made the firemens job so difficult. Water froze as it ran down the walls, sheets of ice spreading across the road made even the most limited of movements hazardous. Monstrous icicles hung everywhere.

The arrival on the Massey Shaw and the Colonial Wharf fire. 1935.

Chief Officer Dyer retired in 1933 after a long and distinguished career in the Brigade. He was replaced by Major Cyril Clark Boville Morris. MC. Morris had entered the LFB diract as an officer after his military service in WWI. He arrived a 'war hero' having been awarded the Military Cross whilst serving in the Royal Army Service Corps. Morris had shown himself to be a natural leader of men. He was also an accomplished engineer. Appointed Chiegf Officer he brought his considerable  talents to bear in the reorganisation and re-equipping the LFB.Morris may well have been small in stature but he was big in ideas and getting them delivered.

Major Morris. MC. KFSM.

In addition to the introduction of the hose laying lorry, which he designed, and that could lay, at speed, twin lines of two and three quarter inch hose, in 1934 he oversaw the introduction of the first duel purpose appliance. This sleek, open topped, fire engine (made by Dennis Bros of Surrey) could carry either the 50 foot wheeled escape ladder or an extension ladder. It was equipped with a hosereel tubing and carried a 'first-aid' water tank. Most notably Morris convinced the LCC that the Brigade required an new fire-float. Maybe he was assisted in this by the change in the political complexion of the LCC. It had changed. The Labour Party now controlled the LCC for the first time and therefore it controlled the Fire Brigade Committee too. The building of a new of a new fire brigade headquarters complex at Lambeth had already been agreed in principle and the Labour administration carried it through. They also approved the building of a new river station as part of the Lambeth HQ complex and the commissioning of the Massey Shaw fire-float as it was to named.


 

The Massey Shaw fire-float as originally built.

Massey Shaw fire-float.

The Massey Shaw was launched in 1935 and it replaced the Delta that had been launched in 1913 but had proved to difficult to navigate in the Thames spring tides. The Massey Shaw had a pumping capacity of 3,000 gallons per minute compared to her sister craft's (Beta III) 2.000 gallons a minute.Its monitor could throw a column of water higher than any building then on the Thames river frontage. The disposition of the brigade's fire-float fleet then was;

• Beta III at Cherry Garden Pier (R82)
• Massey Shaw at Blackfriars (R81)
• Gamma II at the Lambeth river station (R80)

The Colonial Wharf fire-1935.

On September 25th the fire-boat Beta III was moored alongside the Cherry Garden Pier-Rotherhithe. On the immediate opposite bank lay a range of imposing wharves and warehouses including the Colonial Wharf. This nine-storey warehouse was full of crude rubber and other highly combustable products. It was a fire that burned for four days requiring 60 pumps, 20 special appliances,3 fire-floats and 600 firefighters to fight this huge blaze.

The callwas given by exchange telehone diredt to the Whitechapel fire station at 3.28 p.m. A second call was given to firemen onboard Beta III by a passer-by at 3.35 p.m. Fire enginges from Whitechapel, Shadwell and Beta III headed to the scene. The first land crews to arrive found the warehouse alight on the 6th floor, although no fire was actually visable from Wapping High Street where they parked their engines. In fact they experienced great difficulty in quickly locating the seat of the blaze owing to the narrow internal staircases and the meandering means of approach.

At 3.48 pm., and 20 minutes after the first call was made, a 'district call' was sent. This brought in all the surrounding fire engines of the division (15 pump fire): fire engines from the now forgotten City of London stations of Red Cross Street, Whitefrairs, Bishopsgate and Cannon Street. They all rushed towards the great pall of smoke rising from the eastern side of Tower Bridge. Additionally the Massey Shaw was summoned as were additional turntable ladders. The Chief Officer, Major Morris, left his Southwark Headquarters in his staff car headings towards the incident and to take charge of operations.

With the 5th floor packed with 2 cwt bales of crude rubber the whole floor was soon engulfed in fire and the firemen had to abandon their positions owing to the extreme heat and dense, choking, smoke. Ever more pumps and turntable ladder requested. The fire was attacked from five turntable ladders in Wapping High Street and firemen on the adjoining roof tops using jets and even one from a riverside crane. At 4.41 p.m. Major Morris sent out a 'Brigade call'. Sixty pumps attended the fire. Radial branches were in use in the High Street and moored badges on the river. There large capacity jets throwing vast volumes of water at the blazing building. Three of the brigades four fire-floats were brought into action. (The Delta being the fourth which was the brigade's reserve fire-float.) The Massey Shaw and the Beata III were throwing some 5.000 gallons per minute into the inferno. But the fire burned fiercely. It had also spread to the adjoining warehouse on the downriver side, a warehouse also stocked full of crude rubber.

The fire was considered 'surrounded' by 9.45 p.m. that day. However, it continued to burn vigously thoughout the night, the front wall of the building partially collapsing into Wapping High street. Then the following morning, shortly before 7.00 a.m. there was a violent expolsion which brought down the buildings side wall. The fire burned all day and with further explosions. Explosions which blew 2 cwt bales of burning rubber out into the surrounding east London streets. The fire was not finally extinguished until Sunday 29th September and damping down continued for two further days.

The Massey Shaw at work at the Colonial Wharf fire-1953. It's first major fire.

The new Lambeth river station opens; 1937.

The LCC has sought a suitable site for a new fire brigade headquarters as early as 1930. One to replace the outdated, Victorian, Southwark Bridge Road headquarters. Finally, on the 5th March 1935, the Labour controlled Council approved Major Morris's proposal to build a bespoke, and showcase, LFB headquarters complex on the Albert Embankment at an estimated cost of £280,000. (It actually cost, when fitted out, £390,000.) With the site cleared, work commenced in May 1935.

The design brief was for a main block of ten floors and basement comprised of; a seven bay appliance room, watchroom, a breathing apparatus room, control room, gymnasium and canteen. The first floor was fire station accomodation, offices. Second floor set out for senior and principal officer offices, with administration offices on the third. The upper floors were residential quarters for the Chief Officer and brigade's senior officers. Access from the top of the building to the appliance room for fire calls was via four sliding poles. It was reported at the time to be; "The most efficient unit of its kind."

Opposite the headquarters was to be built a new fire-float moorings and pontoon.The prow located directly from the fire station and positioned on Lambeth Reach.

The new Lambeth fire-float river station, opened in 1937.

 The London Fire Brigade Headquarters fire station on the Albert Embankment-1937.

April 1937 saw the partial occupation of the new Lambeth land fire station. The Vauxhall fire station, also on the Albert Embankment by Vauxhall Bridge, was closed as were the Waterloo station in Waterloo Road and the Battersea river station. May saw the dormal transfer of the Brigade Headquarters from Southwark to Lambeth. The new river station opened shortly afterwards with the Gamma II relocated to Lambeth.

The Gamma II at her new moorings-Lambeth May 1937.

On the 21st July 1937 King George VI, accompanied by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, officially opened the new headquarters. It was one of the social summer highlights of the year. Displays by firemen brought totether fire and rescue drills. The King inspected the parade of brass helmeted officers and men. It was the last such parade where the brass and silver (officers) helmets were worn enmass. On the Thames the brigade;s fleet of fire-floats gathered for the Royal opening, standing off Lambeth Reach.

The fire-floats gather for the Royal opening. July 1937. Lambeth Reach.

Cork helmets replaced the brass helmets but for the river firemen must remained the same. 1937.

Storm clouds were gathering over Europe-war was looming. For the men and women (auxillaries) great challenges lay ahead. That story is for another day.

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