City Fire Brigade.
Superintendent—Stephen English, Esq.
Central Office—Guildhall.
Inspectors—Edward Peck and Stephen Amiss.
This establishment was organised in August, 1853; and in addition to the officers, is composed and manned by eighty Police Officers, who are regularly trained and drilled. Three Engines, six Hose Reels, three Fire Escapes, seven Fire Annihilators, Jumping Cloths, and other appliances for extinguishing fires and saving life, are kept ready for instant use.
Upon an alarm of fire at the Guildhall, the police throughout the city receive instantaneous notice thereof by means of signal rockets.
The city is supplied with water on the high pressure system, and fires can be extinguished without the aid of an engine. By means of Hose Reels, the power of a hundred engines can be brought to bear upon any premises on fire.
Mr. English, the present Superintendent, has received several honorary rewards for his intrepidity and exertions in the performance of his duty. A portable Fire Escape lately invented by Mr. English, and exhibited in London, is highly spoken of and approved by several scientific gentlemen. It consists of two cross bars with pulleys, three coils of rope with spring-hooks attached, and a leather belt, by means of which persons may be rescued in case of fire, in an expeditious and simple manner. The advantages of this escape, before all others hitherto invented, are, that you can rescue the inmates from the adjoining houses without passing through the fire—its simplicity, cheapness, portability, and safety. It can also be used up narrow courts and passages, and at the rear of houses, a desideratum which the London escapes do not possess.
Norwich Union Fire Brigade.
Superintendent—Stephen English, Esq., Guildhall
Inspectors—William Barnard and John Hayhow.
Reserve—John Flaxman and James Melvin.
This establishment was reorganised in November, 1854, and placed under the management of the Police.
Two Fire Engines are kept perfectly ready to act on any emergency in town or country. The engines are of the first class, constructed upon the most approved scientific principles, and adapted for rapid travelling into the country.
A Fire Engine upon a new principle has lately been added to the establishment, at a cost of four hundred guineas. It has two 6-in. and two 7-in. cylinders, each worked at an 8-in. stroke, and the machinery so arranged that by simply moving a lever it can be worked as a 6-in. engine, or as a 7-in. engine, or the two can be worked together, and is then more powerful than a 9-in. engine, and throws an inch jet of water 120 feet high, and smaller jets proportionally higher. The advantage of this arrangement being three sizes of Fire Engines to suit the available quantity of water, or number of men. The suction has an air-vessel or reservoir, as in the American engines, a new feature in the construction of engines in this country.