Considering that Superintendent Braidwood (head of the amalgam of Insurance fire brigades in London – forerunner to London Fire Establishment) had made extensive recommendations regarding Fire Prevention measures to be introduced in the range of warehouses and wharves around Cottons Wharf, Tooley Street, etc near London Bridge, it would have been thought that if a fire did occur it could be very quickly dealt with and extinguished. Especially as the Establishment had already dealt with 5 very serious fires there in the previous 28 years and due to Mr Braidwood’s efforts, backed up by pressure from the Fire Offices (Insurance Companies), the fire prevention and fire precautions had been vastly improved. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case on this Saturday afternoon/ early evening and what was initially a small fire was not dealt with and the measures recommended to prevent it spreading had not been fully implemented.

Consequently, as Mr Braidwood aboard a fire engine from the Watling Street Fire Station (the London Fire Brigade’s Headquarters), having been alerted to the fire by their Tooley Street Fire Station to where one of the warehousemen from the location had run to alert them to the situation, he would be in no doubt as to the seriousness of the fire due to the amount of flammable goods he knew would be in the warehouses and the problems that existed with water supplies, especially that one of the main ones, the River Thames, was receding on an ebb tide.

Whilst he proceeded towards the fire, he would clearly see the pall of smoke from the location and would be, as they travelled down the side of the river to reach a crossing, aware of its diminishing height. Though he knew his crews would have their work cut out trying to extinguish the fire and mitigate damage, he probably realised this was going to be a costly fire for his employers, the Insurance Companies.

As it was the final tally for goods destroyed during the fire, which burned for 2 weeks was:

1,000 tons of Hemp, 3,000 tons of Sugar, 500 tons of Saltpetre, 5,000 of Rice, 18,000 Bales of Cotton, 10,000 Barrels of Tallow, 1,100 tons of Jute as well as vast quantities of Tea, Bacon, Spices and other merchandise with a total loss to the Fire Offices of      £2 Million.

 More importantly however this would be the incident where Mr Braidwood met his death and the nation would lose not only a great firefighter but also the man who invented the ‘Science of Firefighting’. The circumstances of his death unfolded as the fire progressed. Having only enough water from the  public water system to supply half of the appliances on site, Braidwood was utilising floating pumps on 2 barges in the Thames to provide more and he had a pump set into a dry dock, which contrary to its name, was at that time full of water. However, as the tide was ebbing, the floating pumps had to be stopped so that extra hose could be added and the barges moved further out into the river before the water supply could be resumed. The pump, lifting water from the dock, worked well suppling water until the fire progressed and endangered both the crew and pump. As the escape route for the pump was cut off, the crew tipped it into the dock, to be recovered later, before retiring to safety.

These were only a couple of the things Mr Braidwood was checking on as he did his rounds of the fire scene. Paramount to him was the welfare of his men and as he did his rounds he would enquire how they were doing and what was happening in their area of the fire. As he circulated accompanied by 2 senior Firemen, William Metcalf and James Sargeant as well as 2 civilians, a Mr ER Cutler of the Westminster Fire Office and Mr Peter Scott of O’Connor and Scott, dealers in leather and fancy goods, he stopped to talk to one of his Foremen, Richard Henderson, who had recently emerged from the fire having taken in a lot of smoke and was getting some fresh air. Supt. Braidwood offered him a tot of brandy from his hip flask, which despite being a teetotaller he always carried for such occasions and stood chatting to him before telling him to rest awhile and get some more fresh air before the party moved off to continue their rounds.

They walked down an alley off Tooley Street towards the river around 7.30pm to check on the floating pumps status and the four men working the two lines of hose.  There was a low rumble and the 80-foot (24.5M) section of wall adjacent to them bellied and started to fall. As the attendant Firefighters shouted a warning the party took off at a run, but Mr Braidwood was seen to pause momentarily, possibly checking on the rest of the party, and then started to run again. Unfortunately, it was too late, Supt. Braidwood and Mr Scott were buried by tons of hot rubble and probably died immediately. News of the Superintendent’s death quickly spread amongst those in attendance and reportedly ‘the heart went out of them’ and the fire grew in ascendency reaching its height around 10pm.

Any hope of immediately recovering Mr Braidwood was quickly ruled out due to the severity of the fire, the mound of brickwork covering him and the heat in the area and it wasn’t until the Monday morning when wall of the warehouse had been shored up that a party of workmen were sent to recover the bodies of both him and Mr Scott. However, given the heat, the closeness of the ongoing fire and the state of the ruined buildings, the workmen refused to carry out the task. The crews of firefighters left overnight to fight the fire, on hearing this, immediately volunteered to attempt to recover the bodies. Despite the apparent dangers the firefighters laboured on clearing rubbish and debris throughout the day until around 5 pm they reached Mr Braidwood’s body.

Alfred Tozer, who coincidentally had been on the roof of the building where the wall collapsed killing both Messers Braidwood and Scott, only moments before and had only escaped possible death by sliding down a charged line of hose, was the first to come upon their Superintendent’s body. In a letter to the ‘The Fireman Magazine’ some years later he stated that Mr Braidwood’s body had not been touched by the fire but that he was unrecognisable and was only identified by the epaulettes and buttons on his tunic, which he cut off, and along with the contents of his pockets, £10 and a tobacco tin and his helmet he had sent back to Watling Street in a  sack. Mr Tozer also recalled discovering the remains of Mr Scott a week or so later which consisted of a few charred shards of bone. The contents of his pockets were also located, a gold watch and chain, some gold and silver coins all of which had been melted by the intense heat. (Mr Tozer left the London Establishment a year after the fire and took up a position as Superintendent of Manchester Fire Brigade.)

Mr Braidwood’s body was moved to a nearby building where it remained until after the inquest which took place the next morning. The Coroner at the inquest told the jury that they would in fact be inquiring into three deaths. As well as Mr Braidwood a man called Sullivan had been killed by the chain of the floating pump and Thomas Masson had been burnt to death by blazing Tallow. There had been speculation that an explosion of Saltpetre, a dangerous substance, had caused the collapse of the wall which killed Mr Braidwood and if this was proven it was an indictable offence. However various witnesses testified that there had not been an explosion in that building, that 500-600 bags of Saltpetre were stored in another building and that they exploded at 10pm some 3 hours after Mr Braidwood’s death. The final and probably most convincing testimony was from the Surveyor, who had been in charge when the building was built, who appeared at the behest of the Jury. He testified that before the wall collapse the roof and upper floor of the warehouse had fallen thereby weakening the ties between the lower floors and the outer walls. Subsequent expansion of the goods inside the burning building had been sufficient to push out the walls causing the collapse, he believed. After a short deliberation following this testimony, the Jury returned a verdict of ‘Accidental Death’.                                                                                                                                                               

Following the Inquest the date of the funeral was set for the following Saturday, the 29th and Mourning Cards were printed and circulated.

In the lead up to the funeral many letters and poems regarding the life and subsequent death of James Braidwood appeared in the press. Here was a man who was much loved and greatly respected not only in London and Edinburgh, the two cities he so diligently served, but also throughout the World. 

On the day the funeral cortege was over a mile and a half long and consisted of representative groups from all the public and private Fire Brigades, City and Metropolitan Police, the major Fire Companies, Waterworks Companies as well as 700 members of the London Rifle Brigade and Band, 400 members of the Tower Hamlet Volunteers, the Band of the Society of the Protection of Life from Fire and their Fire Escape Conductors, Pensioners and Friends . They were followed by the London Fire Engine Establishment and the six pallbearers, 4 LFEE Foremen and 2 LFEE Engineers, all in advance of the coffin carried on a fire engine draped in black crepe and pulled by 6 Black Horses.  The 4 Chief Mourners walked behind and were followed by 15 Mourning coaches carrying relatives, friends and the LFEE Committee. At the tail were the private coaches of the ‘great and the good’ as the cortege wound its way from Watling Street to Abney Park cemetery, Stoke Newington where Mr Braidwood’s body would be interred. The entire route was crowded with the public creating a dense and almost impenetrable throng. By the time the procession moved off, 3pm, nearly all the shops on the route were shut up and several of the houses had shutters closed and blinds drawn.  Every city church bell, except for St Paul’s Cathedral, rang out a funeral peal. The bands played the Death March and as the cortege passed the public, as one, removed their head coverings as a mark of respect. It took nearly 3 hours for the procession to reach the cemetery due to the crowds, who despite keeping the route clear were eager to catch a final look at the coffin of this ‘True Hero’. Described later as the most imposing funeral since the Duke of Wellington’s state funeral it was supposedly never surpassed until the state funeral of Sir Winston Churchill in the early 60’s.   

The coffin was carried into the Presbyterian Chapel at the Cemetery where the Rev Dr Cumming carried out the Burial Service. The Pallbearers then lifted the coffin again and bore it to the graveside through the crowds kept back by a line of Firefighters and Police on each side of the route. The coffin was lowered into the grave which already contained the remains of Mr Braidwood’s stepson, Thomas Parker Jackson, who had died at a fire in February 1855 at Albion Wharf, Holland Street, when a falling beam had struck him whilst he was voluntarily assisting the Establishment. 

Though the formal mourning was over there were still poems and tributes from around the world appearing in the press months later and besides the funeral cards and poems, several other items were produced and sold in his memory.

It is possibly a mark of the man that at the time of his death Queen Victoria, the British Monarch, recorded in her journal that; ‘the Police Inspector, whom we had sent to enquire (about the fire), returned saying, poor Mr Braidwood of the Fire Brigade had been killed….’ . She later sent her commiserations to his widow.  

 Memorials, plaques and statues were erected in his memory but with the exception of the Firefighting Community, the Insurance industry and in the cities of London and Edinburgh, James Braidwood is largely forgotten today, despite the efforts of a few stalwarts who continue to promote what he did, how he did it and the lasting effect it has on firefighting and the firefighters of today. 

I end by quoting Brian Henham from his book ‘True Hero’, which is about the life and times of James Braidwood, and to which I have referred, to ensure accuracy and which I can’t commend enough to interested parties,

‘Today, James Braidwood is very much the unsung hero, which is almost certainly the way he would have preferred it but not the way it should be’

Dave Farries QFSM