Fire prevention and fire extinction

The appearance at the beginning of last year, in the Annual Report of the Institution of Civil Engineers for 1861 and 1862, of a short memoir of Mr. Braidwood, suggested the publication of a more extended account of the life of the late head of the London Fire Brigade, combined with his opinions upon the subject of his profession.

These opinions are comprised in a work on "Fire Engines, and the Training of Firemen," published in Edinburgh in 1830; two papers upon cognate subjects read before the Institution of Civil Engineers, two similar papers read before the Society of Arts, and in a variety of reports upon public buildings, warehouses, &c. While regretting the great loss that the public has sustained, in being deprived by Mr. Braidwood's sudden death of a complete record of his long and varied London experience, it has been considered advisable to republish the above materials arranged in a systematic form, omitting only such parts as the Author's more matured experience rendered desirable, but confining the whole to his own words.

LONDON,

June, 1866.

AUTHOR'S PREFACE

To his work "On the Construction of Fire-Engines and Apparatus; the Training of Firemen; and the Method of Proceeding in cases of Fire," published in Edinburgh, in 1830.

Not having been able to find any work on Fire-Engines in the English language, I have been led to publish the following remarks, in the hope of inducing others to give further information on the subject.

For the style of the work I make no apology; and as I presume no one will read it except for the purpose of gaining information, my aim will be obtained if I shall have succeeded in imparting it, or in directing the public attention to the advantage which may be derived from the systematic training of Firemen.

MEMOIR

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.