Citylife in Lichfield September 2023

What the Blazes?
The History of Lichfield’s Fire Service
By Jono Oates
Today’s fire service is modern and efficient, using the latest technology and
equipment with a fully trained, experienced and full-time crew but this has certainly
not always been the case in the fire service of the past where crews often had to
work with outdated vehicles and equipment.
One of the earliest references to a fire service in Lichfield goes all the way back to 1659 when
Sir Richard Dyott, of Freeford Manor, gave £30 to the ‘bayliffs and citizens of Lichfield to be
bestowed upon a brasse engine for the quenching of houses that are on fire’.
A fire broke out at the farm of Mr Arblaster at Longdon, just outside Lichfield, in September
1841 when a hayrick spontaneously caught fire after the hay had not been dried out correctly. A
Birmingham fire engine, stationed at Lichfield, attended followed by a Lichfield tender and the
blaze was put out before it spread to the farm buildings. The Birmingham engine was on duty for
another farm fire, this time Mr Chamberlain’s farm at Huddlesford in January 1865. It took the
crew two hours to tackle the fire, though their task was helped by the abundant supply of water
from the nearby Huddlesford Canal, and £100 of damage was caused. Luckily for Mr Chamberlain
the property had been insured against risk of fire by the Sun Fire Office for many years. The Sun
Insurance company supplied insurance for many properties across the whole of the country.
Properties covered by their insurance were allowed to attach a Sun fire metal plaque on to the
wall of the building, with their unique insurance number on it, which notified the fire crews that
the building had got the appropriate insurance.
A disastrous and tragic fire occurred on 15th January 1873 at the home of William Corfield, a
watchmaker at number 9 Breadmarket Street. The fire broke out in the early hours of the
morning and William, his wife, four young children and his mother-in-law all perished in the fire.
It was this dreadful event that motivated the City Council to make improvements to the fire
service, in terms of equipment and crew, in Lichfield.
By 1896 there were calls for Lichfield to acquire a new steam-powered fire engine, as there
were concerns that the current engine would not be able to cope with a fire at Lichfield’s larger
buildings, especially the cathedral. This was further illustrated in December 1897 by the disaster
at Wrottesley Hall, near Wolverhampton, which was totally destroyed by fire and created
national headlines over the concerns of noted heritage buildings being at risk from fire. In 1898
Albert Octavius Worthington, owner of the Worthington Brewery, who lived at Maple Hayes,
presented the city with a new steam fire engine at his own cost. Worthington made one
condition, that the engine should also be used to assist at fires of Lichfield’s neighbours, as long
as they were within a ‘reasonable distance’.
The engine was replaced over twenty years later, in August 1922, when the Mayor, Councillor
JR Deacon (also see my lost pubs article on the Turk’s Head) confirmed the acquisition of a
Leyland Motors 300-gallon turbine fire engine. The engine, with other equipment, would cost
£1,500 and Mayor Deacon announced that the City Council would supply £750 of the total cost,
and that they would approach the Ministry of Health for a loan of the remaining £750.
A second fire engine for Lichfield was proposed in February 1936, with the purchase, and
ongoing, costs being shared by the two local councils, Lichfield City and Lichfield Rural District
councils. The new engine made its debut in the July of that year, a Dennis six-cylinder 90 BHP
model, capable of reaching speeds of 60 mph on the flat and 10 mph on a gradient. Both engines
were housed on the lower floor of the Lichfield Guildhall, one tucked in line behind the other,
very hard to believe now, but the engines were much smaller, and slimmer, than the fire engines
of today! After the Guildhall, the Friary grounds, alongside the Friary Road, became the new
home to the fire vehicles.
The Birmingham Road fire station opened in 1964 and the Lichfield Fire Service presented the
Mayor, Councillor Bernard ‘Anch’ Garman with a de-commissioned fire engine, first used in 1941,
to be placed in the children’s adventure playground in Beacon Park.
The 1960s building was demolished in 2015, to be replaced by the state-of-the-art building,
now the Lichfield Community Fire Station, with the crews still fighting fires across Lichfield and
beyond.
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Mayor Bernard Garman and vintage fire
engine 1964
Fire vehicles at the Friary, 1950s
Fire engine at Guildhall, 1920s
Vintage photographs courtesy of the St
Mary’s Photographic Collection
Sources: The British Newspaper Archive.