Our modern Fire Brigade was formed in 1939 with an aim to end a random and inefficient service. Historian Paul Birbeck explains.

While leading a group around Yetminster, someone stated that Mallow’s House, a wooden fronted building in Church Road, used to be the village fire station. It was an assertion that led me to reveal some interesting facts about the history of fire management in rural areas. C19th reports in local newspapers suggest serious fires were actually uncommon. Fires in hayricks, thatched roofs, and barns in villages are recorded; often being ignited by natural events like lightening, sparks from chimney fires and surprise changes in wind direction. Loss of human life was rare, but as the following report of a farm fire in 1911 shows, loss of livestock and property was not unheard of.

“Shortly after midnight some straw thatched buildings, in which were a considerable number of farm stock, were found to be alight, and very quickly an alarm was raised. While heroic efforts were being made by the farm bands and villagers generally ‘ for the suppression of the outbreak’ a message was despatched for the Fire Brigade from Dorchester. The Brigade turned out promptly, and with four horses supplied from the Antelope Hotel stables the steam fire engine was quickly on its way to Bere Regis. But this was just over a ten mile journey, and although the best possible pace was made under the circumstances a considerable time necessarily went before the arrival of the Brigade at the scene the fire. The buildings were then practically doomed, and what is a still more regrettable phase of the occurrence is the fact that it was found impossible to save a considerable number of farm animals that were quartered in the premise.”

Extract from The Western Gazette, April 1911

In October 1874 a fire broke out in the kitchen chimney of the Great Western Temperance Hotel in Yetminster. This was interesting because once the cry of fire was raised, many able-bodied villagers were on the spot helping. Females were reported transferring buckets of water from all parts of the village and the owner Mr Wynne and his family were able to escape unharmed. Records show that the property was insured, as were the family possessions. Clearly, before 1938 no village fire stations existed, although Dorchester, Sherborne, Shaftsbury, Sturminster and Maiden Newton had small municipal fire brigades run by local councils.

Our modern fire brigade

The Fire Service we know today was created in 1939 when a National Fire Service ensured uniformity in the basic equipment used by fire-fighters during the war.
This was a busy time. Firefighters assisted in rescues following the Sherborne bombing in September 1940; were on the beaches on the D-Day landings detailed to extinguish any fires caused by the soldiers fighting and to protect the villages. Interestingly, in 1941, the question of providing extra protection for villages in case of fire, was considered by Sherborne Rural Council.

The idea was to locate basic fire equipment in the villages which had pressure water supply. These were to include
a long reel of corrugated hose with the standpipe adjustment and a dual purpose nozzle, as used on a stirrup pump. This equipment, with three fire buckets, would enable the village fire-fighting party to carry out first-aid action on the fires until the fire brigade arrived. The cost was about £5 for each unit (worth £265 today). The Council declared that if villagers desired this extra protection they might be prepared to raise the necessary money by voluntary subscriptions.

In response to a pamphlet distributed into the villages, and at a public meeting in Yetminster, local people expressed a keen interest in learning how to fire-fight. The Council confirmed a mutual assistance arrangement after which time the evidence trail stops.

Also in the Spring of 1941 Sherborne Rural Council purchased 12 hydrant stand pipes – but only four had operating hydrant keys! Each village was allocated a stand pipe to be kept in the village Wardens Post for use by the fire brigade when they arrived with a hydrant key. The Council did order additional keys.

Following the end of the war the National Fire Service was taken over by local County Authorities, and by 1974 many brigades were amalgamated, losing many City and County Borough Fire Brigades.

Since the 1990s firefighting has needed to deal with new and challenging issues from engaging with the community in fire safety to new equipment and techniques to meet a changing new world.
Thankfully, today, we have well-trained and better teams equipped who quickly respond the fire hazards and problems in the countryside.

I would be interested to hear from anyone who has a copy of the pamphlet or evidence of a village brigade. Please get in touch on [email protected].

by Paul Birbeck

Traffic mayhem at Durweston bridge is nothing new, says Roger Guttridge, as he tells the story of a spectacular near-disaster 90 years ago.

Durweston’s long-suffering river bridge is a regular target for miscreant lorries – and as this picture shows, that’s nothing new. It was taken on March 25, 1929, after a lorry belonging to Park’s of Portsmouth crashed through the stonework and ended up hanging precariously over the river.

The accident happened after the lorry’s gearing snapped as the driver turned left towards Durweston.

‘The lorry swerved to the right and made straight for the stone wall of the bridge,’ says a contemporary newspaper report. ‘Realising that a collision was inevitable, the driver and his assistant jumped out of the cab and got clear of the vehicle without any injury.
‘The lorry completely blocked the road, and it was found impossible to haul it back owing to the dangerous position it was in. A crane had to lift it out.’

The road was blocked for hours, forcing traffic to make a ‘wide detour, considerable inconvenience being caused to those who were using the road’.

The lorry was carrying a cargo of chemicals for the chemists Timothy White’s. The report adds that driver Mr A O Haker and his assistant Mr Newell, both from Portsmouth, had a ‘miraculous escape’.

Fear of drowning
‘Had they not jumped clear they would in all probability have been drowned as there is a drop of about 30 feet to the river and the water at this spot is very deep.’
As the large crowd in the background suggests, the spectacle generated much interest among the locals.
‘It was quite a thing in those days and hundreds of people went to see it,’ Ethel Light (née Hardy), of Shillingstone, told me about 20 years ago. ‘The lorry had to be unloaded so carefully because the chemicals it was carrying would have polluted the river.’

Ethel, whose brother Herbert is in the picture, lived at France Hill just outside Blandford. ‘I was about 13 at the time and it obviously made an impression on me,’ she said. ‘Even now I don’t like sitting in the front of a coach to come round that bridge. It gives me a funny feeling that it’s going to do the same thing.’

Sue Sloper, of Stour Close, Shillingstone, whose mother is in the picture, told me: ‘She and a friend cycled out from Blandford to see the lorry. The accident was big news. Mum also said the driver was so frightened that he passed out.’

by Roger Guttridge