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During the mid-1800s, after military brigades had been disbanded due to their limited success as firefighters, private insurance companies began to form their own private fire brigade units. These were in theory, designated to protect those whose homes and businesses caught on fire for a price. Insurance fire brigades originate from England, with these companies' providing homes and businesses with “fire marks”, a plaque which consisted of the company's logo and was installed

Commer first began in south London around 1904 as Commercial Cars Ltd, manufacturing a variety of vehicles with a forward control aiming to implement better petrol-electric transmissions that relieved drivers of needing to master the art of the “crash gear box’. Commer would participate in the fire engine industry as early as 1910, teaming up with Henry Simonis and Co of Watford. Simonis was an established fire engineering company and provided the firefighting equipment and b

30 years ago, on 27 December 1992 at 6:39pm fire crews were called to the Hampton Court Hotel at Kings Cross on Bayswater Road. The hotel had caught alight, beginning on the ground floor and was first noticed by staff working in the foyer office. The fire raged through the ground and first floor affecting the nightclub and bar present, with smoke damage affecting the upper residential levels of the hotel. The flames reached intense temperatures making it difficult for firefig

Greetings to the avid readers of our weekly blog, I hope you are all faring well during this lockdown period (if you’re based in NSW, that is). As promised in last week’s post, retrievable via this link: https://www.museumoffire.net/single-post/working-from-home-lockdown-2021, I am here today to talk to you about the process enlisted to deinstall a set of three gauge-ous gauges during lockdown. As they have now been retired to storage, I will end this blog by showcasing the s