Ever wish you could travel back in time and meet the people who

throughout history have impacted you in some way or another? Ya, me too.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to go back and interview them or spend a day ‘riding along’.

Instead of just thinking about it I recently went through some documents and asked some questions and found some answers from one of the fire services most influential figures.

I traveled back in time and spent a few hours with the legendary James Braidwood and asked him about his opinions of how we should be conducting ourselves in today’s fire-service.

We met in a small coffee shop on a rainy afternoon recently in London.

Hey, it’s my story, let me tell it.

James was early and had already gotten us a table and some coffee. ‘I beg your forgiveness mate, but I’ve already gotten you a coffee.

I figured as a fireman there was only one way that you should take it.”

Being in awe of this man and not wanting to offend him or let my softness show, I agreed and didn’t tell him that I’d prefer a few sugars and some creamer as well.

“I knew it,” he said. He motioned me to sit down and explained how exciting it was to talk to someone from so far in the future. He said he was quite interested in hearing how the fire service had evolved.

I told him that there would be plenty of time for that, not wanting him to bring the chat to an early halt upon hearing of our present day battles and challenges.

For a brief moment I felt I guess a bit of embarrassment when I thought of how I might answer his questions or how I might explain some of the nonsense we face with in our great service today.

So I was glad when he didn’t press on and said, “well then let’s get on with it."

James was born two hundred and nineteen years ago in 1800, in the town of Edinburg, England. Much like many of those who would follow him into the fire service, he was born to a father who was in the building trades. When he finished his schooling at the Royal High School James joined his father’s company as an apprentice.

It was during this time that he learned much about how a building is constructed and how that construction could affect how a fire would travel through it. His interest in the fire service grew rapidly as Edinburg was suffering from a rash of fires in vacant and abandoned buildings in its Old Town Section.

Funny I thought, this sounds familiar, a new town was being built and many moved into it leaving decay and neglect in their wake. Only the faces change I thought.

In the 1800’s life happened fast and by the time you hit your 20’s you’ve been hard at it for years. James certainly was not immune to this fast paced life clock.

By the time he had reached twenty-three he’d worked with local insurance companies to create the world’s first municipal fire service which he called, The Edinburg Fire Establishment.

During his time with the Establishment he worked hard and was a pioneer in the field of firefighting. He worked most diligently on the process of extinguishing the fire and the training of his firemen.

James headed this new organization for 9 years before moving to London to head the newly formed London Fire Brigade. This is where he would serve the rest of his career until he was killed in the line of duty at a warehouse fire when a wall collapsed upon him as he led his troops into battle. He was 61 years old.

As we sipped our coffee and reminisced of his time in the fire service I asked Mr. Braidwood a series of questions pertaining to firemen at the various stages of their careers, he also offered some general thoughts on the fire service as well.

The following are those questions and the answers he so skillfully and succinctly provided.

I think it’s clear to most people that the job of fireman is not for everyone. You were responsible for admitting men into your departments. What were some of the qualities and characteristics that were most important to you when making those selections?

“Well, in forming the brigade in Edinburgh, where the firemen are only occasionally employed,the description of men, from which I made a selection, were slaters, house- carpenters, masons, plumbers, and smiths.

Slaters make good firemen, not so much from their superiority in climbing, going along roofs, etc., although these are
great advantages, but from their being in general possessed of a handiness and readiness which I have not been able to discover in the same degree amongst other classes of workmen. It is, perhaps, not necessary that I should account for this, but it appears to me to arise from their being more dependent on their wits, and more frequently put to their shifts in the execution of their ordinary avocations.

House carpenters and masons being well acquainted with the construction of buildings, and understanding readily from whence danger is to be apprehended, can judge with tolerable accuracy, from the appearance of a house, where the stair is situated, and how the house is divided inside.

Plumbers are also well accustomed to climbing and going along the roofs of houses; they are useful in working fire- cocks, covering the gratings of drains with lead, and generally in the management of water. Smiths and plumbers can also better endure heat and smoke than most other workmen.

Men selected from these five trades are also more robust in body, and better able to endure the extremes of heat, cold, wet, and fatigue, to which firemen are so frequently exposed, than men engaged in more sedentary employments.”

I have generally made it a point to select for firemen, young men from seventeen or eighteen to twenty-five years of age. At that age they enter more readily into the spirit of the business, and are much more easily trained, than when farther advanced in life.

Now it happens not unfrequently that the man who arrives first at a fire, not withststanding any training or instructions he may have received, is still, from the circumstances of the case, left almost entirely to the direction of his own judgment.

It is, therefore, of immense importance to procure men on whose coolness and judgment you can depend. If they are expert tradesmen, so much the better, as there is generally a degree of respect shown to first-rate tradesmen by their fellows, which inferior hands can seldom obtain; and this respect tends greatly to keep up the character of the corps to which they belong, which ought never to be lost sight of.

It is incumbent upon the men selected for these positions to render prompt and cheerful obedience to the commands of their superiors; to execute their duties as steadily and quietly as possible; to be careful not to annoy the inhabitants of houses they may be called upon to enter, and to treat all persons with civility; to take care to preserve presence of mind and good temper, and not to allow themselves to be distracted from their duty by the advice or directions of any persons but their own officers, and to observe the strictest sobriety and general regularity of behavior.

As every man wears the uniform of the Establishment, he must constantly bear in mind that misconduct will not only reflect discredit upon the Establishment, but be easily brought home to himself.”

I know that something you held in a place of high importance was the training of firemen. I’m sure that in your time, as we still experience today, there were members or politicians who complained about the amount of training or costs related to it.

What are your thoughts on the training of firemen and its value to the service?

“I am quite aware that many people object to the training of firemen; but it would be just as reasonable to give to a mob all the “materiel” of war, and next day expect it to act like a regular army, as to expect engines to be managed with any general prospect of success, unless the men are properly trained and prepared for the duty which is expected from them. Fire is both a powerful and an insidious enemy, and those whose business it is to attack it will best succeed when they have become skillful and experienced in the use of their arms. It is quite obvious that a fire brigade, however complete in its apparatus and equipment, must depend for its efficiency on the state of training and discipline of the firemen. Wherever there is inexperience, want of co-operation, or confusion amongst them, the utmost danger is to be apprehended in the event of fire. It is amidst the raging of this destructive element, the terror and bustle of the inhabitants, that organization and discipline triumph, and it is there, too, that coolness and promptitude, steadiness and activity, fearlessness and caution, are peculiarly required; but, unfortunately, it is then also that they are most rarely exhibited.”

Today we often hear of firemen, Chief officers and or municipality administrators who look to curtail the deployment of a standard full response to incidents because of cost or over

utilization of resources. Do you think they have a point or are they missing the point?

“It is much better that an engine should be turned out twenty times when it is not wanted, than be once too late. This may cause a trifling expense; but even that expense is not altogether lost, as it teaches the firemen steadiness and coolness.”

With the advent of modern technology, it is easy for firemen from across the world to nearly instantly view the operations of other departments and inevitably comment up them, even though they are not actually present at the incident. Do you think this is helpful to anyone in our service?

*Author’s Note:* It took some time to explain to Mr. Braidwood and for him to come to an understanding of the types of technology that I spoke of. Though he was intrigued by this ‘sorcery’, he seemed also to be a bit concerned for how it might be utilized against one another.

“The best public means of arresting fires is a very wide question, as the only limit to the means is the expense. Different nations have different ways of doing the same thing. Which is the best of these different modes it is difficult to say; perhaps each is best suited for the place where it exists.”

Because of our ability to instantly see, share and comment on issues in the fire service, significant differences of opinion have sprung up over various firefighting theories and the application of those theories to our incident responses is now debated at nauseum.

Many people take little bits of information and run with it even though they do not have all of the available information or before that information has been completely vetted.

*Author’s Note* while still a bit confused by all of this instant communication around the world, you could easily see that Mr. Braidwood was now beginning to realize the negative potential to the sorcery I had been explaining. His demeanor began to change as much of what we were now speaking of was foreign to him and his way of thinking and for that matter, anyone he had ever known.

I continued with the question, one of the great debates that currently rages within our fire service is over ventilation, from which point the first application of water should be placed and is there a potential space in which a victim could survive on this inside a building.

He first addressed ventilation and the potential of a survivable space inside of a building fire.

“On the first discovery of a fire, it is of the utmost consequence to shut, and keep shut, all doors, windows, or other openings. It may often be observed, after a house has been on fire, that one floor is comparatively untouched, while those above and below are nearly burned out. This arises from the door on that particular floor having been shut, and the draught directed elsewhere. If the person who has examined the fire finds a risk of its gaining ground upon him, he should,
if within reach of fire-engines, keep everything close, and await their arrival, instead of admitting air to the fire by ineffectual efforts to oppose it with inadequate means.

A stratum of fresh air is almost always to be depended on from six to twelve inches from the floor, so that if the air be not respirable to a person standing upright, he should instantly get down. I have often observed this fact, which indeed is well known; but I once saw an example of it which appeared to me to be so striking, that I shall here relate it.

A fire had broken out in the third floor of a house, and when I reached the top of the stair, the smoke was rolling in thick heavy masses, which prevented me from seeing six inches before me. I immediately got down on the floor; above which, for a space of about eight inches the air seemed to be remarkably clear and bright.

I could distinctly see the feet of the tables and other furniture in the apartment; the flames in this space burning as vivid and distinct as the flame of a candle, while all above the smoke was so thick that the eye could not penetrate it. The fire had already burst through three out of five windows in the apartment, yet, when lying flat on the floor, no inconvenience was felt except from the heat.”

He went on to address the application of water.

“When the hose is attached and the engine filled with water, the man who holds thebranch-pipe, accompanied by another, should get so near the fire, inside the house, that the water from the branch may strike the burning materials. If he cannot accomplish this standing, he must get down on his hands and knees and creep forward, those behind handing up the hose.

The great point to which everything ought to be made subservient is, that the water on its discharge from the branch-pipe should actually strike the burning materials.

This cannot be too often or too anxiously inculcated on everyone connected with a fire-engine establishment.

The old plan of standing with the branch pipe in the street, and throwing the water into the windows is a very random way
of going to work; and for my own part, although I have seen it repeatedly tried, I never saw it attended with success. Indeed it is hardly to be expected that water, thrown from the street into a room three or four stories high, can have any impression on closets, presses, or passages, divided probably with brick partitions in the center of the house.

When the water is thrown from the street, it is impossible to say whether it touches the parts on fire or not. No one can tell anything about it, except when the flame appears at the windows.

While speaking of the mode of entering houses on fire, I may mention that I have tried several inventions for the purpose of elevating the branch pipe and hose

to the level of a second or third story window. But these, although exceedingly ingenious, appear to me to rest on a principle entirely wrong; I mean that of throwing water on the fire from the outside of the building.”

Our conversation when on for some time on these topics and eventually came to that of the search for victims. I asked about the importance of rescuing victims as a priority in our response to incidents.

“This, indeed, is the principal danger attending fires, and should be particularly guarded against, as a person, when being suffocated, is unable to call for assistance. In a case of this kind the fire took place in the third floor from the street, and all the inmates immediately left the premises except one old woman.

In about fifteen minutes after the arrival of the engines, the firemen made their way upstairs, and the poor woman was found dead beside a basket partly filled with clothes, which it was supposed she had been packing up for removal; had she made any noise, or even broke a pane of glass, she would, in all probability, have been saved; as the fire never touched the floor in which she was found, she must have died entirely from suffocation, which a little fresh air would have prevented.

Had the slightest suspicion existed that any one was in the upper floors, they would have been entered by the windows
or the roof; but as the fire took place in daylight, and none of the neighbors spoke of any one being in the house, it was thought unnecessary to damage the property, or risk the lives of the firemen, without some adequate cause.

This, however, shows how little dependence can be placed on information received from the inmates of the premises on fire.

Some of the people who lived on the same floor with this poor woman, and who had seen her immediately before they left
the house, never mentioned her. I do not suppose that this negligence arose from apathy, or any feeling of that sort; but the people were in such a state of utter confusion, that they were unable to think of anything, but to escape.”

After discussing tactics, I decided to turn towards leadership and what he thought were requirements for those in leadership positions or aspiring to serve in such a capacity.

“The person having the principal charge of the engines should frequently turn over in his mind what might be the best plan,
in such and such circumstances, supposing a fire to take place. By frequently ruminating on the subject, he will find himself, when suddenly turned out of bed at night, much more fit for his task than if he had never considered the matter at all. Indeed, he will frequently be surprised, when examining the premises afterwards (which he ought always to do, and mark any mistakes he may have committed), that he should have adopted the very best mode of extinguishing the fire, amid the noise, confusion, and the innumerable advices showered down on him, by all those who consider themselves qualified or entitled to give advice in such matters; a number, by the way, which sometimes includes no inconsiderable portion of the spectators. He should also make himself well acquainted with the different parts of the town in which he may be appointed to act, and notice the declivities of the different streets, &c. He will find this knowledge of great advantage.

Any buildings, supposed to be particularly dangerous, should be carefully examined, and all the different places where supplies of water can be obtained for them noticed.

A knowledge of the locality thus obtained will be found of great advantage in case of a fire breaking out. Indeed, all firemen, especially those having the charge of engines, should be instructed carefully to examine and make themselves acquainted with the localities of their neighborhood or district. Such knowledge will often prove valuable in emergencies; the proprietors or tenants of the property on fire being sometimes in such a state of alarm, that no distinct intelligence can be got from them.

In extinguishing fires, like most other things, a cool judgment and steady perseverance is far more effective than any desultory exertions which can be made.

An Officer, must set an example to the men of alacrity and skill in the discharge of his duty, and of regularity in his general behavior.

He is responsible for the conduct of the men placed under him, and for the state of the engines, which must at all times be kept in first-rate order; he also makes himself well acquainted with the talent and general character of each individual under him.

It is expected that he is able and ready to give instructions to the engineers and men on all points relating to their duty.

He must be firm and just, and, at the same time, kind and conciliating in his behavior on all occasions.

Every fireman in the establishment may expect to rise to the superior stations, by activity, intelligence, sobriety, and general good conduct.

He must make it his study to recommend himself to notice by a diligent discharge of his duties, and strict obedience to the commands of his superiors, recollecting that he who has been accustomed to obey will be considered best qualified to command.

On the alarm of fire, he proceeds with all possible speed to the engine-house to which he is attached.

He must at all times appear neat in his person, and correctly dressed in the establishment uniform, and be respectful in his demeanor towards his superiors.”

This discussion led me to my final question as we’d been at it now for some time. I asked Mr. Braidwood what his thoughts on physical fitness were and how he thought it effects the firemen and the job they are tasked with carrying out.

The discussion meandered through physical fitness and its benefits, and ended, to my surprise, with the importance of the personal rescue rope.

“There is a branch of training which I introduced amongst the Edinburgh firemen some time ago, which has been attended with more important advantages than was at first anticipated. I mean the gymnastic exercises.

The men are practiced in these exercises (in a small gymnasium fitted up for them in the head engine-house) regularly once a-week, and in winter sometimes twice: attendance on their part is entirely voluntary; the best gymnasts (if otherwise equally qualified) are always promoted in cases of vacancy.

So sensible were the Insurance Companies doing business here, of the advantages likely to arise from the practice of these exercises, that on one occasion they subscribed upwards of 10l., which was

distributed in medals and money among the most expert and attentive gymnasts of the corps, at a competition in presence of the magistrates, commissioners of police, and managers of insurance companies.

Amongst the many advantages arising from these exercises I shall notice only one or two.

The firemen, when at their ordinary employments, as masons, house-carpenters, &c., being accustomed to a particular exercise of certain muscles only, there is very often a degree of stiffness in their general movements, which prevents them from performing their duty as firemen with that ease and celerity which are so necessary and desirable; but the gymnastic exercises, by bringing all the muscles of the body into action, and by aiding the more general development of the frame, tend greatly to remove or overcome this awkwardness.

But its greatest advantage is the confidence it gives to the men when placed in certain situations of danger. A man, for example, in the third or fourth floor of a house on fire, who is uncertain as to his means of escape, in the event of his return by the stair being cut off, will not render any very efficient service in extinguishing the fire; his own safety will be the principal object of his attention, and till that is to a certain extent secured, his exertions are not much to be relied upon.

An experienced gymnast, on the other hand, placed in these circumstances, finds himself in comparative security. With
a hatchet and eighty feet of cord at his command, and a window near him, he knows there is not much difficulty in getting to the street; and this confidence not only enables him to go on with his duty with more spirit, but his attention not being abstracted by thoughts of personal danger, he is able to direct it wholly to the circumstances of the fire.

He can raise himself on a window sill, or the top of a wall, if he can only reach it with his hands; and by his hands alone he may sustain himself in situations where

other means of support are unattainable, till the arrival of assistance.

These are great advantages; but, as I said before, the greatest of all is that feeling of safety with which it enables a fireman to proceed with his operations, uncertainty or distraction being the greatest of possible evils.

The cord carried at the waist-belt of the captains, sergeants, and pioneers, being fully sufficient to sustain a man’s weight, and with the assistance of their small hatchets easily made fast, and the pioneers always being two together, there is thus no difficulty in descending even from a height of eighty feet: the cords should be doubled by way of security.”

After a few hours of incredible discussion on the great service we clearly love, it was time to bring our conversation to an end.

Clearly, Mr. Braidwood was a visionary fire service leader, a man far beyond his years in knowledge and ability.

His understanding of the dynamics of fire, fire-ground and firemen, indicated that clearly he was the right man for his moment in time. It is the work that he did, in those fledgling days of the municipal fire service in England, that has set the stage for much of what we still do to this day.

His perception and ability to understand what he was seeing and experiencing on the fire-ground with nothing but his eyes and power of observation are nothing short of remarkable.

And those qualities, at that point in history, should serve as a reminder to us that even though we have technology and advanced methods of study on our side, the ability to observe and
the experience gained by of having been a part of something, are to this day a critical part of our ability to understand and react to the incidents that we are called to respond to every day.

We might also glean from his experience that when dealing with forces of nature, though the packaging and application
of a situation may vary, the laws that that force must follow remain a constant throughout time and evolution.

I was a bit disappointed that our time had come to an end as I felt we were just scratching the surface of what we could discuss. I offered my sincerest gratitude for the time he had spent with me.

He assured me he’d had a great time as well and that one day he hoped that maybe just maybe we could meet again, but in a coffee shop in my country and in my time.

I said that that would be great, we shook hands and went on our way.

As I walked down the now dimly lit cobblestone alley on a foggy London evening, I couldn’t help but wonder if his coming to our time would not be in any of our best interest.

I wondered that if by him seeing how far, or how little we’d come if it might effect in some way how he’d proceed in his life and in turn how he might have changed the course of our history.

It seemed to me that maybe we should spend a little more time learning and heading the lessons of history and mastering the challenges of the present before we invite such a visionary to take a glimpse at what they envisioned would be.

Understanding our history and learning lessons from it, is of such vital importance to understanding where we are and how we might move forward. This was
a time when our ancestors had not much more than their minds to work through their challenges, and yet they were able to accomplish so many incredible things and lay the groundwork for so many more.

Therein may be the most important lesson of all.