Fire Service: Difference between revisions

From the 1700s insurance companies provided private fire brigades in major urban areas, funded by premiums paid by their policyholders. Fire-fighters would only tackle a fire when it affected their own insured customers. In the Victorian era thinking changed and Volunteer Fire Brigades were set up in urban areas, prompted by several notable incidents, including the Tooley Street fire in London in 1861. Chester already had a volunteer fire brigade established in the mid-1800s and they were called on to deal with any major incidents in Hoole. The Local Board of Health governed all matters regarding risk to life and two major fires, one in 1868 at the [[Flookersbrook]] Tannery and the other in 1876 at William Philips, a cheese maker on [[Hoole Road]], both involving thatched roofs and a turnout from the Chester Volunteer Fire Brigade (CVFB), seem to have spurred the Board to consider fire-fighting provision in the area.

In September 1874 a letter from Captain Smith, Chief Constable of Cheshire gave the Board permission to erect a building in the Constabulary Yard on Hoole Road, in which  to keep the Reel Cart and Hose, subject to certain terms. The following month plans were prepared to obtain a tender, and in November the quote from Charles Holland of [[Faulkner Street]] amounting to £34-10-9 for the work was accepted and the building work commenced.

In February 1886 one of his successors, Detective Inspector Downes, by then "caretaker of the hydrants and appliances in connection with the firehose reel", resigned and his successor, Inspector Brittain, was appointed.  In debate it was asserted that "no-one apart from the Surveyor was conversant with the working of the fire extinguishing apparatus, the necessity to work in conjunction with CVFB was emphasised, and to make an effort to raise a few volunteers"