258
��NOTES BY THE WAY.
��Death of Braidwood.
��Capt. Shaw
and suspicious
fires.
��MI
Low, jun., and fire- escapes.
��The
Publish erf 1 Circular.
R. B.
Marston editor.
Strength of the Fire Brigade.
��Crimea) the fire engines were largely worked by volunteers from the crowds assembled, and the men sang popular songs as they pumped. When it was seen that the fire was being subdued they would all join in ' Rule, Britannia,' closing with ' God save the Queen,' amid hearty cheers, when the fire was extinguished.
All London mourned when Braidwood " died in action as such a man would wish to die " in the great fire at Tooley Street on the 22nd of June, 1861.
In the year following a Committee of the Commons reported in favour of the formation of a brigade under the control of the police ; but it was not until the 1st of January, 1866, that the establishment was transferred to the Board of Works, and shortly afterwards Capt. Shaw, who succeeded Braidwood, drew up statistics of fires hi London from 1840 to 1866. In a review of this work which appeared in The Athenceum of the 2nd of Novem- ber, 1867, Capt. Shaw is quoted as making the startling statement " that one-third, or more, of all the fires in London are regarded by insurance offices and the Fire Brigade as involved in suspicion."
Capt. Shaw retired in 1901, and in the same year he received the honour of K.C.B. On his retirement the fire insurance com- panies presented him with a splendid silver service. He died on Tuesday, the 25th of August, 1908, in the seventy-ninth year of his age.
When the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was formed the fire-escape system was included. This had previously been a matter of private enterprise, Mr. Sampson Low, jun., of the well-known publishing firm of Sampson Low, Son & Marston, being one of its chief promoters. It was wholly supported by public subscriptions, and it was only after Low had bestowed years of labour upon it that it was brought to the high state of efficiency in which it was handed over to the Board of Works. Low died on the 5th of March, 1871. His father, who survived him until the 16th of April, 1886, founded The Publishers' Circular in 1837, and in its thousandth number (May 16th, 1879) he gave a short account of its history. It is now edited by my friend Mr. R. B. Marston.
Through the kindness of Mr. G. Laurence Gomme, the Clerk of the London County Council, I am able to give some particulars as to the strength of the London Fire Brigade in 1907. The number of the staff is 1,390, 980 being firemen. The material includes 78 land fire stations, 3 floating stations, 77 land steam fire engines, 5 motor engines, 10 manual engines, 49| miles of hose, 1,246 fire alarms, and many other appliances. The fire-escape arrangements include 15 hand-fire-escape stations in the streets, 73 horsed escapes, 2 motor escapes, and 115 manual escapes. The number of slight fires during 1906 was above the average of the previous four years, but the serious fires were only 65j against 76 in 1902.
�� �
