But, like the Tooley Street buildings, these warehouses were chiefly stored with very combustible materials. Tallow was here, which played such a bad part in 1861; spirits were here also, palm oil, tons of dyewood, flax, jute, and cotton. Labourers had been at work for some hours when the alarm was given, and men were busy on every floor. They were receiving the goods from the quays, and wheeling them along through the building, when the fire was discovered.
And now Captain Shaw, the chief who succeeded Braidwood as the head of the fire-brigade, dashed up with a steamer from Watling Street, which was then the headquarters of the brigade. He had received the alarm at about twenty minutes to twelve o'clock, and had telegraphed to all subsidiary stations.
Captain Shaw, who afterwards became Sir Eyre Massey Shaw, K.C.B., was born the same year as the steam fire-engine was first used—viz., in 1830. He was the son of Mr. B. R Shaw, of Monkstown, County Cork, and in due time entered the army. Retiring in 1860, he became chief of the Belfast Borough Forces, including police and fire-brigade, being appointed in the next year the chief of the London Fire-Brigade.
THE FIRST COMPLETE FLOATING STEAM FIRE-ENGINE, 1855.
Not only did he telegraph for land steam fire-engines to the conflagration; but a large steam-float, usually kept off Southwark Bridge, was also quickly under way. Soon he had eight land steamers and from seventy to eighty men on the spot, while he himself directed in person.
Mr. Collett, one of the Dock Company's secretaries, worked hard, and often at great peril; Mr. Graves and Mr. Stephens, also officials of the company, were busily engaged in directing removal of valuable materials; while about seventy men employed by Cubitt & Co. in rebuilding a warehouse, destroyed by fire in the previous October, rendered assistance.
The little army found themselves face to face with a difficult task. The fire was now burning furiously, and the smoke was well-nigh overpowering. The flames had reached the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, and seemed working downward; while the burning jute sent forth such dense volumes of smoke, that the men were forced back again and again. But bravely they returned to their task; and taking advantage of the moments when the clouds cleared, they directed the hose to the most needful points.
For six hours the fire raged, until all the three upper floors were destroyed, and the third floor seriously damaged. The scene in the waning winter afternoon was sufficiently striking as the smoke gradually cleared and the blackened ruins became dimly visible. They were very dangerous, for the walls appeared likely to topple over at the slightest provocation.
About five o'clock, the firemen seemed to have gained the mastery, and Captain Shaw returned home; but later in the evening he was summoned again. Most mysteriously the flames had burst forth once more in fresh places, the upper parts of two adjacent warehouses of the same block had caught, and were in flames. By eleven o'clock the fire was blazing as furiously as ever.