Historic Books Sawbridgeworth Fire Brigade 1897 - to the early 1970's and beyond.
with other town information and views
Dedicated to those who unselfeshly gave of their time and loyalty to their fellow citizens.
Home
Historic Books
Chief Officers
Other Profiles
Fire Engines
The Fire Station(s)
Call-Out
Log Books
Attendance Book
The War Years
Social Events
Special Occasions
SFB History Trivia
More SFB Trivia
Drills & Competitions
Photo Gallery 1
Personal Stories
Photo Gallery 2
Fire Station Archive
Links to Other Sites
About Sawbridgeworth
Town Views - Events
More Town Views
Other Contributions
Miscellanea
More Miscellanea
Email the Webmaster

 

 
Page last updated: 23/01/2021
Sawbridgeworth Fire Brigade - Historic Record Books
27th September 1897 - 20th January 1949

The book immediately below is the principal book of records of the brigade from which  details have been extracted but there is another small book titled "Fire Engine Inspectors Minutes" which precedes this. The contents of this are available at the bottom of this page. The principal book structure on both is presumably fairly standard for the time, being Dark Grey leather panelled with a Dark Red leather bound spine and triangular corners. The Principal Minute Book measures 8¾" (222 mm) wide x 13" (330mm) long and about ¾" (20mm) thick to provide the then standard Foolscap size feint ruled pages. There are 182 pages of text, all of which are available in the files below. An image of the main book together with its first inside page is shown below. The other book measures 7¼"  (187mm) wide x 9¼" (235mm) long. Only the first five pages were used!
All of the pages are easy to read and one can only be envious and pay tribute to the writing ability of the Secretaries of the day! The actual 'quality' of view of the pages in the files provided can be determined by downloading the one page below, by 'clicking' the front inside page itself.

SFB Minute Book starting 1897
Principal Minute Book Cover Principal Minute Book First Page Fire Engine Inspectors Minutes Book Cover Occurrence Book Cover

The separate pages of the Minute Book are in *.pdf  format but are themselves consolidated into Winzip© compressed files and you will need the software to be able to unzip them. If you do not already have this software it can be downloaded using the button below. The software is either the trial version which you can use for a limited period only or, you can purchase it on line!

The whole content of the Minute Book is available here. Regrettably, the size of the files is rather high but this is done to preserve as much as possible the authenticity of the original pages in size, colour and quality of the wording. The pages have been broken into 9 file batches covering the periods as set out below, so that they can be downloaded in 'chunks' as an alternative to the one large file! The dates shown are meeting minute dates.

 
Zip File & Period Covered [ 27/09/1897 - 13/01/1902 ] [ 18/11/1902 - 27/01/1904 ] [ 26/08/1905 - 03/10/1907 ]
Download File Size (KB) 2,595 2,090 2,249
Pages Numbers 1 - 20 21 - 40 41 - 60
 
Zip File & Period Covered ► [ 11/11/1907 - 16/12/1909 ] [ 25/07/1910 - 10/02/1913 ] [ 27/05/1913 - 24/02/1921 ]
Download File Size (KB) 2,544 2,477 2,256
Pages Numbers 61 - 81 82 - 101 102 - 121
 
Zip File & Period Covered ► [ 09/02/1922 - 01/03/1929 ] [ 14/02/1930 - 13/06/1935 ] [ 13/10/1935 - 20/01/1949 ]
Download File Size (KB) 2,460 2,501 2,285
Pages Numbers 122 - 141 142 - 162 163 - 182
 
Zip File & Period Covered ► [ 27/09/1897 - 20/01/1949 ]
Download File Size (KB) 21,455
Pages Numbers 1 - 182

horizontal rule

Fire Engine Inspectors Minutes - 9th September 1893 - 15th March 1894
As indicated above this Minute Book commenced on the 9th September 1893 when,  J.E. Taylor (Taylor's Stores - Knight Street, subsequently Forrest Stores) Henry Burton - Bell Street (Builder), J. J. Kirkby - The Square (Butcher), E.R. Thorogood, H.W. Towse and W. Morris (Town Clerk) all met in the Church Vestry Room to consider the setting up of a Parish Fire Brigade "to work the Parish Fire Engine". It seems therefore that the, presumably manual fire engine, already existed! They met again on three occasions, the last being on the 15th March the next year. The decision reached was to set up a brigade, by which time they had determined that 17 local men had agreed to volunteer and that arrangements were in hand to gain financial support. Subsequently it obviously took another three years to get fully underway.
Zip File ► Fire Engine Inspectors Minutes
Download File Size (KB) 2,129
Pages Numbers 1 - 5
Occurrence Book - June 1903 - 1st July 1911
PDF File ► [ Sept 1903 - Feb 1904 ] [ Apr 1905 - Nov 1905 ] [ Jun 1906 - Dec 1907 ] [ May 1906 - Nov 1908 ] [ Mar 1909 - Jul 1911 ]
Download File Size (KB) 2,531 1,121 1,375 1,330 1,290