Notes for Researchers:

There are numerous town, city and county record offices/archives which contain local information related to fire heritage, in particular, records of individual fire brigades which existed prior to the formation of the NFS in 1941 and, where a County Borough, City or a County was a designated ‘fire authority’, from 1948 to 1974, the records of the ‘Fire Brigade Committee’ (or similar committee titles) and ‘Chief Fire Officer Reports' can be a useful source of information. After April 1974, ‘fire authorities’ covered much larger geographical areas and all are required to record records of meetings and decisions made in the interests of the public.

Unlike with records related to military service, researchers will be disappointed to learn that there are no surviving central personnel records for the AFS (both eras) and the NFS. Many local records have, over the years and through many organisational mergers or amalgamations, been lost or were destroyed. Existing fire and rescue service generally will not share any historical personnel records that they hold, due to their concerns related to data protection but, as public services, are required to respond to general enquiries about the service that they provide via Freedom of Information requests.

For the WW2 period, researchers can often find information in local record offices related to the organisation of fire brigades of the time and the creation of the WW2 era AFS. Researchers should focus on the period 1937 to 1941 for the AFS but also seek records with titles such as ARP, Air Raid Precautions, War Committee, Civil Defence, Emergency Committee etc as the responsibilities in this era were very mixed depending on the size and status of the local authority.

During this period many additional fire stations and ‘Action Stations’ were established to cope with the additional work that fell on the fire service across the UK due to the threat of and actual experience of air raids. ‘Action Stations’ were crewed from parent fire stations in preparation for air raids or on the receipt of an imminent air raid warning. These additional locations were in a variety of buildings but commercial garages, bus depots, Borough Engineer yards, pub yard buildings etc along with vacant school buildings were all very popular choices. Places where personnel, vehicles and equipment could be accommodated at strategic locations. Researchers may have to investigate deeply as station locations changes, were removed/added and perhaps destroyed, (sometimes with loss of lives), during air raids. The NFS period also has the added complications of station code designations and divisional boundaries changing, sometimes more than once.

The ‘Supplementary Fire Parties’ (SFP), (sometimes incorrectly called ‘Street Fire Parties, later renamed the ‘Fire Guards’ and, the ‘Fire Watchers’ of WW2, were not actually part of the fire service, even though they were linked to and operated in support of them. They were part of the ARP, later the Civil Defence organisation.

When trying to identify images, fire heritage resources may have a mas of interesting images which frustratingly cannot be identified on first viewing. Fire Brigades loved to take photos o their personnel lined up, resplendent in their uniforms either in front of fire stations or in front of, or alongside their vehicles and equipment, thus covering over station signs, vehicle livery displaying the brigade name/crest or obscuring the registration number. Such photos were often taken on the opening of a new station or on receipt of, or placing into service, a new ‘fire engine’. Fire engines were often christened with a name, often of a local dignitary but as with registration numbers, the positioning of the brigade members and officials often removes another clue. A few of the larger local authority fire brigades could afford to have their own badge or initials placed on their purchase brass, cork, or leather helmets but most had ‘off the shelf’ helmets with a generic badge. Some did make use of circular breast badges which may give a clue, but often these were just numbers in an embroidered red border circle and these numbers were in effect the brigade number of the wearer. It can sometimes just be a case of luck in being able to identify a well-known person such as the Chief Officer.

For the WW2 period, image clues can often be found in the uniform insignia. Sometimes a researcher can be lucky enough to have a sharp image which will display the NFS Fire Force Number or the AFS unit actual name. The NFS had an embroidered left breast badge consisting of a red circle with the letters NFS and the number of the Fire Force in red within the circle. The AFS equivalent was similar embroidered breast badge being red ringed circle mounted above a horizontal box. Withing the circle was the letters AFS in red and below in the box, the named brigade to which the AFS unit was attached. Both the AFS and the NFS had metal eight-pointed stars with the letters AFS or NFS in red, but a quick determination can be made by the fact that the NFS badge had a royal crown at the top, whilst there was no crown on the AFS badge. Although there was of course a brief
period around the formation of the NFS on 18 August 1941 when some previous AFS members were still wearing the old insignia, it was in fact quite a fast changeover to the new badges. Members of  the previous named local authority brigades were also to adopt the new NFS insignia, although they were much more reluctant to do so! When looking at vehicles and trailer pumps there are also clues. AFS vehicles and trailer pumps issued by the Home Office were painted in Admiralty Grey and issued to local authority brigades for use by their Home Office funded and equipped AFS units. These independent brigades could choose to apply markings but there was no consistency in approach and was often a number or letter of the station as chosen by the individual brigade. Vehicle also issued to the NFS by the Home Office were also painted grey, but the NFS adopted a very structured approach to identifying its vehicles and trailer pumps utilising a system of letters and numbers to identify the Fire Force, Division and station or in the case of some special vehicles by type name. Similar marking would be placed on the outside of fire stations. Gradually previous local authority vehicles lost their red and gold-lined livery and were painted red (although a few managed to escape this indignity). Likewise, during the period of the NFS but after the wartime period and as things progressed towards handing back control of fire brigades to local authorities, some vehicles were reverted to red. Other timestamps clues can be found in the use of masked headlamps and white painted edges of mudguards and bumpers etc, and a researcher may find wish to compare to dates for the introduction and removal of blackout lighting regulations to narrow down possible time periods for a photo, especially if compared with other insignia and vehicle marking clues.

Photos taken after the end of the NFS period may be easier to identify due to the wider and more common adoption of brigade/station names/numbers being displayed at stations/headquarters and on vehicles. Good quality images may allow identification of helmet or cap badges and some brigades continued the use of an embroidered circular red-ring breast badge with metal letters/numbers right into the 1970s.

Fire Brigades prior to the Fire Brigades Act 1938 could have been under the responsibility of local authority committees by names different than might be expected, such as the Lighting and Watch Committee or the Watch Committee or in some cases the Police. Researchers need to establish first who had responsibility and it was very varied depending on the size of the authority.

Military Fire Services have existed under various organisational structures and names, going back to the formation of the first brigade set up to protect the Army Garrison at Aldershot in 1864. Police Fire Brigades operated under the responsibility of a Chief Constable were very common for local authorities during the late 1800s and early years of the 1900s but were gradually replaced over time, with the last remaining few, such as Bristol and Portsmouth, ceasing to exist on the formation of the NFS on 18 August 1941. To be strictly accurate, fire protection at some Royal Navy establishments remained the responsibility of the Admiralty Police on a gradually reducing basis until the 1960s.

Salvage Corps were funded by the insurance industry to conduct salvage operations at fire incidents to save and protect buildings and their contents from the effects of fire, water, heat and smoke andthus reduce the financial burden on the insurance companies. There origins went back to the early
days of Insurance Fire Brigades and men employed as ‘Porters’ whose task it was to remove items from burning buildings. The London Salvage Corps, Liverpool Salvage Corps and the Glasgow Salvage Corps operated from that looked exactly like fire stations, with vehicles that closely resembled style of fire engines, but equipped with salvage equipment and  salvagemen dressed identical to firemen of the time. They worked around and within buildings, alongside those fighting the fire, protecting contents with salvage sheets, removing items under threat, removing the build-up of water etc. These highly professional and respected organisations saw their final days between 1982 and 1984.

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