This month marks 200 years since Manchester Fire Brigade was created
Firefighter tackles the Woolworths department store fire in central Manchester, Tuesday 8th May 1979(Image: Mirrorpix)
May 2026 marks 200 years since Manchester Fire Brigade was established – the first of its kind in England.
Before it became the industrial centre of the world, Manchester’s fires were tackled by a motley crew of unskilled ‘engine men’ who were provided with rations of alcohol as encouragement to face the flames. Perhaps one of the most colourful characters of this late 18th-century era was Isaac Perrins, the brigade’s first ‘Conductor of Firemen’ appointed in 1799.
Isaac’s primary claim to fame was as a celebrated bare-knuckle prize fighter. Tragically, he died two years later in 1801, from an illness as a result of his heroics at a large fire in Hodson’s Square.
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In the early years of the 19th century, the inefficiencies in the existing fire control measures in Manchester were becoming legendary. In July 1825, one local newspaper said that Manchester had “The worst regulated and most inefficient fire police of any town in the United Kingdom.”
It wasn’t until 1826, spurred by the radical proposals of the Manchester Fire and Life Assurance Company, that the town finally traded its drunken amateurs for the country’s first fully funded and organised local authority fire service.
Of course, Manchester’s poorly organised attempts at firefighting go back further than 200 years. In 1615, when Manchester was still just a village, a major fire destroyed much of the central area.
Like the Great Fire of London, which happened over 50 years later in 1666, this started in a bakery, forcing the local authority to buy ladders, buckets, and fire hooks in case of a future fire.
In 1636, a night watch patrol system was successfully put in place to spot fires in their earliest stages and is said to have prevented many further disasters. The first two primitive fire engines were bought in 1699 and kept in a churchyard, 70 years before the first purpose-built ‘engine house’ was established in the yard of The Angel pub in 1770.
Fire escape station on Normanton Road, Rusholme. c1890(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
When the Manchester Fire Establishment was officially born in 1826, it became the first municipal fire service in England. The following years saw a period of great innovation in firefighting technology for the force.
In 1833, the first-ever elevated firefighting platform, designed by the force’s innovative Superintendent William Rose, known as the ‘Fireman’s Elevator’, was built.
By 1835, a fleet of five Manchester-built, horse-drawn engines was supplied by the Hollins factory in Lower Mosley Street. Each carried a large water tub, meaning, for the first time, engines could travel with their own water supply.
Demonstration of a wheeled escape ladder, Albert Square. 1849(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
William Rose was succeeded by his son Thomas following his resignation in 1846. Important developments during Thomas’ time included the first wheeled escape ladder, and in the early 1850s, Manchester established a high-pressure water system, supplied by the Longdendale reservoirs. With this new water supply came the country’s first fire hydrants.
After the resignation of Thomas Rose came the most celebrated chief officer in the Brigade’s history – Alfred Tozer. During Tozer’s thirty years as Superintendent, he transformed Manchester into one of the most professional and influential fire brigades in the country.
At the end of the 1890s, the Corporation was looking to build a new headquarters fire station and appointed its next Chief Officer, George William Parker from Belfast. Within weeks of his arrival, Parker had planned the design and construction of a headquarters at London Road, soon to become one of the most famous fire stations in this country.
New fire brigade headquarters on London Road(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
The London Road headquarters fire station, opened in 1906, had been designed to accommodate the new-fangled motorised fire engines. The Brigade’s last two horses were finally pensioned off in 1919 as the service became fully motorised.
The First World War brought new problems for many fire brigades. The number of men they could recruit was reduced as they were called up for military service, and even some of the fire horses were sent to the battlefield.
The war saw the opening of many munitions factories with large numbers of employees handling extremely dangerous materials under immense pressure. Inevitably, disasters happened, and in 1917, the Manchester Fire Brigade was sent to munitions explosions at the National Shell Filling Factory in Morecambe, where 10 people died, and at the Hooley Hill Chemical Works in Ashton-under-Lyne, which killed 45 people, including several schoolchildren.
First motorised fire engine, 1911(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
The 1920s saw an increase in serious incidents, including major ship fires at the docks and factory fires in Trafford Park. Firefighters also faced a growing number of fires involving petroleum, chemicals, and cinema films, as safety legislation for these hazards had not yet been developed.
New equipment was introduced to cope with these modern hazards, such as the first motorised turntable ladder, oxygen breathing apparatus and foam-making appliances.
As the machines of war grew louder in Europe in the late 1930s, fire brigades across the country began to prepare for what a possible conflict might bring. With the expectation of aerial bombardment, plans were drawn up for how local fire services would respond to such attacks.
Carry down ladder drill at London Road HQ(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
In 1938, an Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) was formed in every local authority, regardless of how large or efficient the existing brigade was. In Manchester, which already had a full-time establishment of 200 men, the proposed AFS strength was around 5,000 men and women.
The Manchester AFS mainly used part-time crews and set up temporary fire stations, including garages, railway arches, and council yards. An AFS training centre opened in the former St. Joseph’s Industrial School at Longsight, later to become a regional training centre from 1941. This period saw the first women in the fire service, but only for control room, administrative, catering and driving roles.
Christmas Blitz, Portland Street, December 1940(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
The AFS crews remained idle until the Autumn of 1940, when the bombing raids on Manchester began. The falling bombs of the Christmas Blitz that came to Manchester and Salford on December 22-24, 1940, killed hundreds and reduced large parts of the city centre to ash. Over 40 firefighters were killed in air raids or other wartime incidents between 1940 and 1942.
The government nationalised the entire British fire service into the National Fire Service (NFS) in 1941 to improve wartime standardisation and control. Following the end of the war, the Manchester Fire Brigade was reformed in 1948.
Inspection of the re-forced Manchester Fire Brigade by the Lord Mayor. March 31, 1948(Image: Greater Manchester Fire Museum (Fireground))
During the 1950s, Manchester Fire Brigade continued to innovate, introducing the first control room equipped with automatic 999 tape-recording apparatus in 1955. Manchester was the first fire brigade to have a vehicle with a revolving blue light in 1959.
But in 1974, the city’s fire brigade, as it was known, ceased to exist. The major reorganisation of local government came into effect in April that year, establishing new metropolitan and non-metropolitan counties, with the Manchester City Fire Brigade amalgamated into the newly formed Greater Manchester Fire Service.
The aftermath of the IRA Manchester bomb at the Arndale, June 15th, 1996(Image: Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue)
Following the formation of the Greater Manchester Fire Service, the brigade responded to several major incidents that went on to influence national change. These included the Woolworth store fire in Piccadilly in 1979, the Weaste train crash and the Summit rail tunnel fire both in 1984, the Manchester Airport disaster in 1985, the Arndale bombing in 1996, and the Manchester Arena terrorist atrocity in 2017.
To mark 200 years since the fire brigade was established in Manchester, a major open day at Manchester Central Fire Station, Thompson Street, on Saturday, May 30, will take place between 10am and 4pm.
The event will be open to the public, showcasing modern and preserved (old) fire engines and equipment, along with displays that tell the history of the brigade.