Fire prevention and fire extinction

by James Braidwood

OF

JAMES BRAIDWOOD.

The history of mankind, from the earliest times, has been one of alternate peace and war with fire. The immeasurable value of its obedience, and the fearful consequences of its insubordination, have, in all ages, made its due subjection one of the most important conditions of even human existence itself. As camps and trading stations grew into populous cities, the dangers of fire were both multiplied and aggravated. Its ravages in the ancient capitals of the world are matters of history; and it is established that something like organization was extended to the means then employed for suppressing conflagrations. Even the fire-engine itself, in a practicable, although imperfect form, was described and illustrated by a sectional working drawing, by Hero of Alexandria, in a book written by him more than one hundred years before the Christian era. In its many translations, from the original Greek into Latin and into modern tongues, Hero's book, with its remarkable series of drawings, still occupies a place in the mechanical literature of our own time. But, although the construction of the fire-engine was thus known two thousand years ago, we have no actual evidence of its use until within the last two centuries; and within the whole compass of English history, at least, we know that nothing like discipline and organization, in the modern sense of the terms, were introduced into the management of fire apparatus until a time quite within the recollection of the middle-aged men of our own day. If there be anything apparently improbable in this fact, we need only recollect that many of the grandest triumphs of human genius, with which we are already so familiar, are not yet forty years old. The modern system of English fire brigades belongs wholly to the period of railways, steam navigation, and electric telegraphs, and it owes nearly all to the genius and disciplined heroism of a single individual, James Braidwood, who, but little more than four years ago, fell—as nobly for himself as sadly for others—at his chosen post of duty. What, when he first gave his energies—indeed, his whole heart to it, was but the rough and unskilful employment of the fireman, became under Mr. Braidwood's command and his infusing spirit of order and intelligence, as distinguished from reckless daring, a noble pursuit, almost rising in dignity to a profession, and indeed acknowledged as such by many, and significantly, although indirectly, by Royalty itself.

Until the year 1833, not only the parish engines of the metropolis, numbering, as they did, about three hundred, but the engines also of the Fire Insurance Companies, were comparatively inefficient and often out of order, while they were also under the most diverse, if not irresponsible management. There were no really trained firemen, and those who controlled and worked the engines were oftener in antagonism with each other than acting in concert. The parish engines were in the care of the beadles, and in one case a beadle's widow, Mrs. Smith, for some years commanded one of the city engines. The energies of each band of firemen were commonly reserved for the protection of property only in which their own insurance company or parish was immediately interested. As a rule, whatever water was thrown upon a burning building was dashed against the walls, windows, and roof from the outside only, very little if any really reaching the actual seat of the fire within. As a consequence, fires, which are now quickly "got under," were then left to burn themselves out, the spreading of the fire being prevented either by deluging the contiguous buildings with water, or by pulling them down altogether.

James Braidwood was born in Edinburgh in the year 1800. His father was a well-known upholsterer and builder, who appears to have chosen for his son the profession of a surveyor. To this end he was entered at the High School, then under the rectorship of Mr. (afterwards Professor) Pillans, and here, and subsequently under private masters, the youth received a sound education in the branches most appropriate to his intended pursuit in life. He was for some time engaged in his father's business, and thereby gained an amount of practical knowledge, which was of, perhaps, as much service to him in his subsequent career as a fireman, as it would have been had he adopted the profession originally chosen for him. Young Braidwood was an apt student, a fact, perhaps, sufficiently attested afterwards by his successful authorship, at the age of thirty, of the only English work then extant upon the fire-engine and its proper management. He read much, wrote well, was a good draughtsman, and had a sound knowledge of mechanics. But whether his powers required wider scope than a surveyor's practice could offer, or whether, more than forty years ago, and in Edinburgh, the chances of professional success were very much less than now, James Braidwood soon turned his mind to what became the great work of his life. He was becoming known for activity and a high order of personal courage, and there were those in place and power who saw in him the other elements of character which go to make a successful leader of men. He was soon, and when but twenty-three years of age, made the superintendent of the Edinburgh fire engines, and he almost as soon began to reform their inefficient and vicious system of management. He had held his post but three weeks, however, when the series of fires broke forth which still bear the name of the Great Fire of Edinburgh. Many of the old and lofty houses in the High Street were destroyed, between four and five hundred families were made houseless, ten persons were either killed outright or fatally injured, and for several days nearly the whole of the High Street, if not the larger part of the old town, was threatened with destruction. Never were the consequences of want of organization more conspicuous. There was no real command, for there were none to obey; and while those who might have stopped the flames at the outset, wasted their own energies in random efforts, or, perhaps, fell to quarrelling among themselves, the fearful devastation rolled on. The occasion was sufficient to induce the authorities and insurance companies to listen to and profit by Mr. Braidwood's recommendations. They consented to bear in common the expenses necessary to organize and maintain an efficient brigade. This was soon formed of picked men, who, although daily engaged in their former ordinary occupations, were regularly inspected, trained, and exercised early in one morning of every week. Fires were becoming more and more numerous year by year; but the influence of the improved system was soon felt. The men were taught to improve to the utmost the first few minutes after an alarm was given, and by constant emulation and discipline, a spirit of wonderful readiness was cultivated in them. They were trained to seek out and follow up the source of a fire before it had had time to spread, and to throw the water from the engines directly upon it, instead of wastefully, if not injuriously about. The result was, that while out of forty-eight fires which happened in the first year of the history of the brigade, eleven proved total losses, and twelve "considerable" losses, the number of total losses decreased rapidly, year by year, while the whole number of "calls" was almost as rapidly increasing. Thus in the second year of the brigade there were eighty "calls," of which seven were total, and eighteen considerable losses. In the next three years, with from ninety-four to one hundred and ninety-four "calls" yearly, there was but one total loss in each year, and but from nine to eighteen "considerable" losses.

Mr. Braidwood was meanwhile improving the fire-escapes, and when new engines were added to the force, he procured better workmanship. By his personal influence, also, more than by the mere advantage of official position, Mr. Braidwood secured the constant co-operation of the police in giving the earliest alarms of fire, and in facilitating the labours of the firemen when actually on duty. As has just been shown, the results of method, applied skill, and of a personal devotion cultivated under the high impulse of immediate public observation and approval, were soon manifest. To this vast improvement the Edinburgh Mercury, as representing the opinion of the citizens of the Scottish capital, bore public testimony in its issue of August 14, 1828, when the Fire Brigade of that city had been tested by nearly five years of constant trial, and with conspicuous success. Referring to the excellent organization of the establishment, it was remarked that there were then but few, if any, serious fires in Edinburgh, for when a fire broke out—and the alarms were as frequent as ever—it was speedily checked. Said the writer:—

"Not only is the apparatus constructed on the best possible principles, but the whole system of operations has been changed. The public, however, do not see the same bustle, or hear the same noise as formerly; and hence they seem erroneously to conclude that there is nothing done. The fact is, the spectator sees the preparation for action made, but he sees no more. Where the strength of the men and the supply of water used to be wasted, by being thrown against windows, walls, and roofs, the firemen now seek out the spot where the danger lies, and creeping on hands and feet into a chamber full of flame, or smoke, often at the hazard of suffocation, discover the exact seat of danger; and, by bringing the water in contact with it, obtain immediate mastery over the powerful element with which they have to contend. In this daring and dangerous work men have occasionally fainted from heat, or dropped down from want of respiration, in which cases the next person at hand is always ready to assist his companion, and to release him from his service of danger."

In a fire which happened while Mr. Braidwood was at the head of the Edinburgh Brigade, he won great admiration by bringing out from the burning building a quantity of gunpowder which was known to be stored there. He would not ask any of his men to undertake this dangerous feat, but, amidst the breathless suspense of thousands of spectators, he coolly searched for and safely carried out, first one, and then a second, cask of this explosive material. Had the fire reached the powder, it was known that the worst consequences of the conflagration would have been immensely increased.

The fame of the Edinburgh Brigade rapidly spread throughout the kingdom, and it gradually became regarded as a model to which all other organizations for the suppression of fires would ultimately be made to conform. As a response to constant inquiries from a distance, Mr. Braidwood, in 1829, forwarded to the Society of Arts, London, a description of his chain-ladder fire-escape. For this invaluable apparatus, which had already effected a considerable saving of life, the Society's Silver Medal was awarded, and, accompanying the award, the Council of the Society extended an invitation to the author to "give a complete account of his mode of drilling firemen, and combining the use of fire-escapes with the ordinary fire-engine service." Responding to this invitation, Mr. Braidwood in the following year published his work "On the Construction of Fire-Engines and Apparatus, the Training of Firemen, and the Method of Proceeding in Cases of Fire." From this work, which may still be regarded as an authority, extensive extracts have been made in the subsequent chapters of the present volume, and it need not, therefore, be further referred to here than to say that it formed a thoroughly original account of an original system, and that its illustrations, which were especially clear, were drawn by the author's own hand. This work attracted much attention from municipal bodies and insurance companies throughout the kingdom, and more than one official deputation visited Edinburgh to learn from Mr. Braidwood himself the details of a system which was already working such important results. In London, especially, three West India warehouses had been burnt in the year 1829, with a loss of 300,000l.; and with the extending use of gas, the increasing frequency of fires, and the conspicuous inefficiency of the parish engines, and the want of unity of action among the insurance companies, it was felt that what had answered so well in Edinburgh would prove still more valuable in the metropolis. The general estimation in which Mr. Braidwood's services were then held may be considered as expressed in the following, among other contemporary reviews of his book:—

"The Edinburgh Fire-engine Establishment is now all but perfect. A unity of system has been accomplished, and a corps of firemen mustered, who, in point of physical vigour and moral intrepidity, are all entitled to be denominated chosen men. At the head of this band stands Mr. Braidwood, an individual who has on several occasions given abundant evidence of promptitude in extremity, and a noble contempt of personal danger, and whose enthusiasm, in what we may call his profession, could not have been more strikingly exemplified than by his illustrating it in the manner we now see before us. It is the only book we are acquainted with that treats of the systematic training of firemen; and from the perspicuity of its details, it must necessarily become the manual of all such institutions, and ought to find a place in every insurance office in the United Kingdom."