I'm Bruce Fummey. You probably know that Scotland invented the modern world.
You'll be used to hearing names like Adam Smith here,
David Hume up the street, numerous others recognised in and around the Royal Mile,
but today I want to draw your attention a short distance into Parliament Square, to a statue
that you've probably passed by unnoticed, because I want to tell you about James Braidwood, the
Scotsman who invented the Fire Brigade, and was also the first witness at the trial of infamous
murderers Burke and Hare. If you're interested in the people, places and events in Scottish history, then
click the subscribe button at the bottom right of the screen, in the meantime, let me tell you a story.
It was Matthew Norris who pointed out that James Braidwood here deserves more recognition, and can
I make a video, and I thought you know what, he's right. Now Francis Braidwood was a builder and
cabinet maker in Edinburgh, and his son James started an apprenticeship with his dad, and he
learned the skills and knowledge of construction, but rather than follow directly in his father's
footsteps, he became a surveyor, with a particular interest in the problem of fires in buildings.
By the early 19th Century, rich folk had started to move north across to Edinburgh's Georgian
New Town. The buildings here in the claustrophobic old town would have felt like sardines, and
probably smelled even worse. Tightly packed buildings, several stories high, often surmounted by little
more than wooden shacks teetering at the top. Of course occasionally, the sardines got cooked.
Ideally, you'd have your building insured against fire. Insurance companies took premiums, and to
protect their liability, and their customers' property, they'd have private fire services.
You'd have a notice in front of your house, so that when an insurance company fire service arrived,
they'd know if you were a customer, and whether or not to fight the fire.
We would never imagine a system like that in Britain today, and if you don't think
about it, you might assume that fire services were always municipal, but no. It was in 1824, at the age
of 24 that James Braidwood thought a more structured response to fire hazard was appropriate.
He worked with Edinburgh authorities to bring public and private together,
and create the first municipal fire service ever. He employed carpenters, slaters, masons, plumbers,
men who understood house construction. Working part-time, and training at four in the morning.
He trained them as a disciplined service, and changed the whole way of tackling fire.
It was he who said, that instead of spraying the building with water from the outside, firemen had
to go in, find the seat of the fire, and shut it off at source. This was radical. Within weeks as
theories were put to the test, on the second floor of Old Assembly Close here, there was a map maker,
and late in the evening the 15th of November, 1824, a pot heating linseed oil for his copper
plates cracked, and the workshop set alight. Now within minutes, fire engines arrived here on
the scene, but confusion reigned. You see whilst men who understood building construction, and
were trained to put out fires were on hand, ultimate authority was still in the hands
of the 'gentleman of importance' in the city, and so it was Baillies and Law Officers who gave confused
and conflicted instructions to specialist firemen, who tried desperately to follow them, not only that
there weren't enough municipal firecocks to supply water. By 11 o'clock the upper six stories
were completely alight, worse the fire spread across the close, worse still, the close was too
narrow for fire engines to get in. Even bigger disaster, the buildings included book shops and the
Edinburgh Courant newspaper amply stocked with the perfect material to fuel a fire. The frontages of
these buildings here crashed onto the pavement, and this whole section of the High Street lay in ruins.
By morning, the firefighters were gaining the upper hand, but embers had flown down as far as the Tron
Church there behind me, and by midday its roof's lead was melting, and the steeple was blazing. It's
probably thanks to this new municipal fire service, that the rest of the building still stands today,
but heat sources still remained, and the next night the fire reignited further up the Royal Mile in an
11-story tenement in Parliament Square. Braidwood's statue now stands where his men made their last
stand all those years ago. Now this story is not about the great fire of Edinburgh, but more the
men who valiantly fought it, and more importantly, the man who led them, but with three to four hundred homes
destroyed, and 13 people dead, the destruction wrought over a four day period was catastrophic.
The public inquiry that followed, decided that the city fire master should take command of
firefighting operations. Within a year the 45 firecocks had been increased to 97
and then 180 after that. Braidwood put in place the foundations of modern fire services.
Fire prevention is an integral part of the service; operational safety measures, new technology,
new engines, multi-agency working, chain ladder fire escapes, one of the first forms of breathing
apparatus to be used by firemen. Some say he was the first man ever to rescue a cat from a tree!
Now let me know in the comment section below, when was the last time that you
came across a fireman. By the age of 30 he'd written the first firefighters training manual.
Braidwood's methodical scientific approach wasn't unlike the real-life Sherlock Holmes.
If you didn't realise that Sherlock Holmes was based on a real person who lived in Edinburgh
at a similar time at Braidwood, then you need to watch this video at the end. In the first year of
Braidwood's municipal fire service, they responded to 48 fires with 11 buildings lost, and 12 severely
damaged. The next year, fires attended went up to 84 but only 7 total and 18 partial losses.
By year six, the brigade was responding to almost 200 calls yearly, and only one building per year
a total loss. One time, when two barrels of gunpowder were in a burning building, Braidwood
insisted that only he should go in to retrieve the gunpowder, so as not to endanger any of his men. He
made two successful trips, saving the building from explosion, and himself from almost certain death.
Now there's no way that this success was going to go unnoticed. Braidwood's Edinburgh fire engine
establishment was being noticed throughout these islands, and indeed the world. In 1829, the London
Society of Arts, awarded him the society's silver medal for the design of that chain
ladder fire escape. Delegations visited Edinburgh to seek his advice, and in 1833, when eight London
insurance companies decided to consolidate their fire protection services into the London Fire
Engine Establishment that would become the London Fire Brigade. It's no surprise that they came north
to ask James Braidwood to read it. He built a team of 80 professional firefighters, and 13 stations
across the city. When a devastating fire struck the Houses of Parliament in 1834, it was he and his men
who saved the 11th Century Westminster Hall, built by the son of William the Conqueror, and that's why
you can still visit it today. Now I can't say for sure, but maybe Braidwood's motivation was to save
for posterity, the building in which William Wallace stood in front of Edward Longshank's
kangaroo court to proclaim I cannot be a traitor, for I owe no allegiance to the King of England,
he is not my sovereign, he never received my homage and whilst life is in this persecuted body,
he never shall receive it. To the other points whereof I am accused, I freely confess them all.
As Governor of my country, I've been an enemy to its enemies I've slain the English, I've mortally
opposed the English King, I've stormed and taken the towns and castles which he unjustly claimed
as his own. If I, or my soldiers have plundered or done injury to the houses, or ministers of religion
I repent me of my sin, but it is not of Edward of England that I shall ask pardon. You took that too far!
Cotton's Wharf held a warehouse on Toolley Street in London. On the 22nd of June, 1861,
it contained 5,000 tons of rice 10,000 barrels of tallow, a thousand tons of hemp,
1100 tons of jute, 3,000 tons of sugar, 18,000 bales of cotton, and somebody who
thought it was okay to smoke! It wasn't! The fire quickly spread to surrounding buildings. The London
Fire Brigade were alerted by 5 pm. By 6 pm, 14 fire engines were on the scene. They had a river fire
engine, which could draw water from the Thames, but the low tide meant that the river was too shallow,
and the river fire engine was forced to retreat from the force of the blaze, and then neighbouring
space warehouses also caught fire. Around 7.30, as James Braidwood was encouraging his men,
a wall collapsed engulfing him totally. It took two days to recover his body. On the 29th of June, 1861,
a funeral cortege, the say stretched for a mile and a half, so the Edinburgh surveyor,
who invented the fire brigade, buried in Stoke Newington, London. Condolences were sent from as far
afield as Brisbane and Boston, and it's a measure of just how far his influence stretched that I
got some of my research material from an American organisation called 'Fire Engineering' which said,
'We may look back to early colonial American bucket brigades, or Peter
Stuyvesant’s regulations of roofing materials. These aspects of our history are important
but the American Fire Service also owes a great debt to a Scotchman,
who's virtually unheard of in this country, James Braidwood.'
now the Burke and Hare story is going to have to wait for another time,
but if you'd like to know about the Edinburgh man who was the real Sherlock Holmes, then there
should be a link coming up on screen now.Tha mi an dochas gum bith lath math leibh. Tiorridh an drasda.