National Fire Service

The National Fire Service (NFS) was the single fire service created in Great Britain in 1941 during the Second World War; a separate National Fire Service (Northern Ireland) was created in 1942.[1]

Second World War poster encouraging women to join the National Fire Service

NFS appliances preserved today

The NFS was created in August 1941 by the amalgamation of the wartime national Auxiliary Fire Service (AFS) and the local authority fire brigades (about 1,600 of them). It existed until 1948, when it was again split by the Fire Services Act 1947, with fire services reverting to local authority control, although this time there were far fewer brigades, with only one per county and county borough.

The NFS had full-time and part-time members, male and female. Its uniform was the traditional dark blue double-breasted tunic, and it adopted the peaked cap worn by the AFS instead of the peakless sailor-style cap which had been worn by many pre-war fire brigades (including the London Fire Brigade). The peaked cap was retained by fire services after the war.

When they were on duty, but in the frequent long stretches between calls, many firemen and firewomen performed vital wartime manufacturing work, in workshops in the fire stations or adjacent to them. This was entirely voluntary, but since many of the wartime personnel had worked in factories before the war it was work with which they were familiar and skilled.

War service meant considerable risk, and members of the NFS were called to attend the aftermath of German bombing raids and coastal shelling from France, or often whilst these attacks were still ongoing. Casualties were inevitable, and there is one record of one volunteer who died on duty aged just 19, and was awarded the Certificate for Gallantry as a result.[2] He is buried in the Hamilton Road Cemetery, Deal, Kent.

The Chief of the Fire Staff and Inspector-in-Chief throughout the war (until 28 February 1947, when he retired) was Sir Aylmer Firebrace, former Chief Officer of the London Fire Brigade.

At peak strength the NFS had 370,000 personnel, including 80,000 women.[3] The women were mostly employed on administrative duties.

The NFS was divided into about forty Fire Forces. These were subdivided into Divisions. Each Division had two Columns and each Column had five Companies.

Ranks

National Fire Service Ranks[4]
	Men		Women		Police equivalent[5]
Insignia[6]	Rank	Number in April 1947	Rank	Number in April 1947	London	Outside London
	Fireman		Firewoman		Constable	Constable
	Leading Fireman		Leading Firewoman
	Section Leader		Senior Leading Firewoman		Sergeant	Sergeant
	Company Officer	1,100	Assistant Group Officer	50	Inspector	Inspector
	Senior Company Officer	250	Group Officer	27	Sub-Divisional Inspector	Chief Inspector
	Column Officer	382	Assistant Area Officer	1	Chief Inspector	Superintendent
	Divisional Officer	194	Area Officer	11	Superintendent	Chief Superintendent
	Assistant Fire Force Commander	52	Regional Woman Fire Officer	3	Deputy Commander
	Fire Force Commander	53			Commander
	Chief Regional Fire Officer
	Senior Staff Officer
	Inspector
	Chief of the Fire Staff & Inspector-in-Chief	1

Notable members

• Sir Frederick Delve (career firefighter and fire service administrator)
• Leslie Leete (career firefighter - later successor to Delve as chief officer of London Fire Brigade)

Members of the NFS who were well known in civilian life (or later became so) included:

• A. L. Barker, writer (NFS telephonist)
• Paul Brooks, cricketer (served in London and Coventry)[7]
• Jack Dash, trade unionist and communist
• Cyril Demarne, writer
• Lewis Dorey, cricketer
• Charles Hadfield, canal historian
• Brian Moore, writer (1941–1942; served in Belfast)
• Ernest Race, furniture designer
• George Rudé, historian (served in London)
• Audrey Russell, radio broadcaster (1941–1942)
• William Sansom, writer
• Sir Stephen Spender, writer (1941–1944)
• Phyllis Stedman, Baroness Stedman, politician (1941–1944; Group Officer in Derbyshire)
• Irene Thomas, radio personality (1941–1944)

An eleven-minute Second World War documentary that chronicles the birth and work of the NFS survived the war and is available to view on the British Pathe website.[8]

Service personnel received Certificate of Service documents.

Certificate of Service for Leading Fireman, Randall Whitford Roach of Troon, Cornwall.

See also

• Ministry of Civil Aviation Aerodrome Fire Service
• Fire services in the United Kingdom

Footnotes

1. Bangor Fire Brigade: A Brief History Archived 2007-09-27 at the Wayback Machine
2. http://www.cwgc.org/find-war-dead/casualty/3115241
3. Haley, Reginald (January 2012). "Firebrace, Sir Aylmer Newton George (1886–1972)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 14 July 2013.
4. Industrial Court Decision 2088, 1 May 1947
5. Pay parity with equivalent police ranks was established from the outset for male officers (Company Officer and above). Firemen and Section Leaders were given parity with police Constables and Sergeants by Industrial Court Decision 2076, 18 December 1946, with Leading Firemen receiving an intermediate rate. Women never had pay parity.
6. Talbot-Booth, E.C. (1943). Ranks and Badges in the Navy, Army, RAF and Auxiliaries (PDF). London: George Philip & Son, Ltd. p. 32.
7. ""Boy Who Bowled Bradman" Dies of War Injuries". The Advocate. 29 January 1946. p. 1. Retrieved 14 April 2012.
8. "The Birth of a Service (1940)". British Pathe Ltd. Archived from the original on 2 March 2011. Retrieved 12 October 2018.