Fire & Rescue Services
Fire was a regular problem for medieval and early modern burghs. In 1652 fire destroyed about a third of Glasgow and following this the town council required that as part of their admission, burgesses were to pay £5 towards the cost of leather buckets for firefighting.[1] As early as 1656 Glasgow town council appointed James Colquhoune to construct an engine to throw water on fires, and sent him to view one in Edinburgh, and in 1725 they purchased a London-made fire engine.[2]
Glasgow appointed a superintendent of fire-engines in 1809 and had salaried masters of fire engines by 1817.[3] In Edinburgh, the town council, police commissioners, representatives of insurance companies and others agreed to set up a Fire Engine Committee under the auspices of the police commissioners and to fund the appointment of a paid fire brigade.[4] They appointed James Braidwood as their fire master, with four head engine men and 53 firemen, all initially part-time but Braidwood became a full-time fire superintendent within a year and this is generally regarded as the first public fire brigade.[5] Following this, many other burghs obtained local acts which included the powers to set up and operate fire engines, employ firemen and recover the costs from owners and occupiers of buildings.[6] These powers were then included in the general police and improvement acts which enabled burghs to operate fire engines, employ firemen and cross burgh boundaries to fight fires in neighbouring local authority areas, covering their costs by levying assessments and charging owners and occupiers.[7] Alongside the development of local authority fire brigades, larger businesses were motivated by their insurance policies to set up works fire brigades.
Until 1938, although many local authorities set up fire brigades, this was not mandatory. The Fire Brigades Act, 1938, set up a centrally co-ordinated service throughout the UK and required local authorities to make arrangements for an effective fire service.[8] In 1941, as a consequence of the war, a National Fire Service was set up by the Fire Services (Emergency Provisions) Act 1941.[9] Scotland was the No. 11 Region of the civil defence organisation under the Home Office and there were six fire areas in Scotland with headquarters in Glasgow, Paisley, Edinburgh, Dundee, Aberdeen and Inverness.[10]
The Fire Services Act, 1947, transferred responsibility for fire services back to the control of local authorities but created combined fire brigades administered by local authority joint committees. Scottish fire brigades were placed into ten areas: Lanark, Central, Western, South-Western, South-Eastern, Fife, Perth & Kinross, Angus, North-Eastern, and Northern. Large burghs, counties and counties of cities became the fire authorities and within these ten combined areas were required to work together to submit an administrative scheme to the Secretary of State for Scotland covering their arrangements for providing fire services, the relationship between fire authorities represented on the joint committee and other matters.[11]
In 1975, regional and islands councils were designated as the fire authorities. The fire brigades of Borders Region and Lothian region were combined as were the fire brigades of Highlands Region and the three islands councils, resulting in eight fire brigades: Strathclyde, Lothian & Borders, Grampian, Tayside, Fife, Central, Highlands & Islands, and Dumfries & Galloway, supervised by regional or joint committees.[12] Under the Local Government etc (Scotland) Act 1994 these eight services were continued and were established as independent joint authorities with representation on their boards from the relevant unitary local authorities.[13] In 2004 the Fire Brigades changed their names to Fire and Rescue Services.[14] The Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 removed fire services from local authority supervision and created a national service led by a Board of 10 members appointed by Scottish Ministers.[15]
Records of fire and rescue services have in most cases been deposited in local authority archives services.
Compiler: Elspeth Reid (2021)
Related Knowledge Base entries
Bibliography
Blackstone, Geoffrey, A history of the British Fire Service (London, 1957)
Bell, James and James Paton, Glasgow: Its Municipal Organization and Administration (MacLehose, 1896)
Ewen, Shane Fighting fires: creating the British fire service, 1800-1978 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010)
Ferguson, Keith, An introduction to local government in Scotland (The Planning Exchange, 1984)
References
[1] James Bell and James Paton, Glasgow: Its Municipal Organization and Administration (MacLehose, 1896) pp.148-49.
[2] Bell & Paton Glasgow pp. 150-51.
[3] Bell & Paton Glasgow p. 153.
[4] Edinburgh City Archives, (GB 236) ED/9/12/1, Edinburgh Police Commissioners Fire Engine Committee Minutes, 1824
[5] Ewen, Shane, Fighting Fires: Creating the British Fire Service, 1800-1978 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010) pp. 38-39.
[6] Glasgow City Extension and Improvement Act 1807 (47 Geo. III c.xxix), Glasgow Improvements Act 1866 (29 & 30 Vict. c.lxxxv), Dundee Police and Improvement Consolidation Act 1882 (45 & 46 Vict. c.clxxxv).
[7] Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c.46) s.97; General Police & Improvement (Scotland) Act 1862 (25 & 26 Vict. c.101) ss.344-348; Burgh Police (Scotland) Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c.55) s.291.
[8] Fire Brigades Act 1938 (1 & 2 Geo. VI c.72).
[9] Fire Services (Emergency Provisions) Act 1941 (4 & 5 Geo. VI c.22)
[10] The National Archives, London, (GB66) HO 207 Home Office and Ministry of Home Security: Civil Defence Regions, Headquarters and Regional Files, 1935-1957.
[11] Fire Services Act 1947 (10 & 11 Geo. VI c.41) s.36, Sch.4.
[12] Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973 (c.65) s.147.
[13] Local Government etc (Scotland) Act, 1994 (c.39).
[14] Fire and Rescue Services Act 2004 (c.21)
[15] Police and Fire Reform (Scotland) Act 2012 (asp 8)