In late 1892 the men of Newport Fire Brigade were incensed that their captain had received a pay rise that in terms of percentage substantially dwarfed their own and launched into a pay dispute with the Corporation.

Led by Deputy Captain and brigade Engineer Jacob Peach supported by long-standing firemen Obediah Jackman and John Stubbs, the firemen stood together. After having their demand snubbed by the councillors the leaders of the dispute pledged that if the council didn’t listen and act on their demands the entire membership would resign on 23 February 1893. The councillors rejected the plea totally and called their bluff.

Corporation wheels went into overdrive to recruit a batch of replacement firemen ready to take over on the fateful date. The situation inspired the councillors to have a rethink, and the decision was taken that paying firemen wrought trouble – the new brigade would be known as the Newport Volunteer Fire Brigade, and its volunteers wouldn’t be paid a penny.  

By arrangement with the Metropolitan Fire Brigade an experienced instructor was hired. John Shaw was a favourite of the Metropolitan service, a fireman of 30-years’ experience, twice commended and medalled with clasps with a record of 17 lives saved from fires and one from drowning. Shaw hastened to the Island to deliver ten days training to the twenty-one rapidly assembled volunteers of the brigade in waiting.

Among the volunteers was Nicholas Henry Thomas Mursell. The volunteers, following the pattern successfully adopted at Sandown, were permitted to elect a Captain from within. They selected Percy Shepard. For reasons unrecorded Shepard submitted his resignation effective 28 December 1894. By the time of Shepard’s departure only seven of the original 21 remained, including Nicholas Mursell. In preparation for Shepard’s resignation Mursell, who had taken the lead in 20 of the 30 drill sessions completed over the previous year, was appointed pro tem captain until the next brigade annual meeting. 

In the following June, after the brigade had faced some challenging fires since the New Year, Nicholas and his men organised a day of sports and drill competitions to be held in a field to the rear of Polars, Staplers Road. Although other seasonal attractions were cited as the cause for a lower attendance than anticipated, approximately 500 persons passed through the gates to participate in the festivities. The Band of the Rifle Volunteers provided a musical accompaniment to seven competitions, comprising several heats, in addition to lighter entertainments such as the tilt-the-bucket competition and Fireman John Ambrose Garraway’s clowning around in suitable attire.

Throughout the remainder of the 1890’s and into the early years of the next century Newport Volunteer Fire Brigade were to attend a wide variety of quite challenging fires at a rate above any other single district of the Island. Despite continually performing striving to do their best and saving a multitude of stock and property from destruction, it became apparent that the Corporations’ enthusiasm for its brigade was waning. By 1903, Newport’s firemen were the sole brigade still wearing black leather helmets – all others sported the iconic brass type. On 26 April 1903, during the middle of three-days of the NFBU/IWFBF combined camp and drill competitions in Ryde, the massed brigades formed up at Holy Trinity Church in Dover Street for church parade.

On 4 August the General Purposes Committee allocated £45 expenditure in respect of a new wheeled escape ladder, after 18-months of Mursell telling them the old escape ladder was dangerously decrepit.

By October nothing had been done about the ladder. In frustration Captain Mursell by-passed council, in which he was an elected member of a ward and made direct contact with Merryweather’s. Armed with the quote for the ladder he approached council. Such was the general rejection of his doing so that he expressed how frustrated both he and his firemen were that no improvements were ever concluded. The General Purposes Committee backtracked, talking of obtaining further quotes before being harangued into deciding. Whilst Alderman Cheverton spoke strongly in favour of accepting the captain’s professional judgement, the Mayor made light of the firemen’s lot by reference to the pay dispute debacle of 1893, suggesting sarcastically to Mursell ‘so we must, or you’ll resign?’ How Captain Mursell walked away from the meeting without losing his rag, and his position, is a remarkable display of self-control.

Nicholas wouldn’t give up for his firemen. It’s arguable he abused his council position as representative of a ward in arguing for the brigade, but without that level of access progress would have been nigh on impossible. By his available means he was finally able to secure his men their much longed for brass helmets in April 1904. It was one small victory in an era where no legislative imposition existed to compel local authorities to provide for firefighting at all – victories, where they existed, were wholly down to the tenacity of officers in charge of brigades.

Everything seemed settled and working well for the future of the paid Newport Fire Brigade, until the opening of the First World War. Immediately Whittington departed to extend his concurrent role as Lance Corporal of the Isle of Wight Rifles – he was dead within a year, one of 89 killed amid the dust of Suvla Bay, his last resting place remains unknown. The needs of the war drew so many from the ranks of the brigade that by February 1915 the Borough’s General Purposes Committee requested, and were granted, permission to recruit a Voluntary Honorary Fire Brigade to act as an auxiliary to the remnants of the regular brigade. The Corporation decided that those recruited were not in need of firefighting uniforms or helmets. Among the unclad were several elder members of the 1908 volunteer brigade who had been refused, or had not wished to join the paid brigade.

During the war years the IWFBF went into virtual abeyance. More of its membership were serving overseas than remained at home. Post-war there seemed little appetite until March 1920 when Nicholas was voted to return to the chair. But progress was slow in the post-war aftermath, a time of tough economy. Newport’s Corporation had rarely invested significantly in the brigade and the time wasn’t conducive to change.

The era of the motor fire engine was gathering pace on the mainland, even so it was perhaps with hope more than belief that Nicholas invited a delegation from Leyland to come to the Island in April 1923 and demonstrate their latest appliance which attracted an approximate £1,500 price tag. By this stage it was incredible that the County town brigade were still responding to fires with a manual engine – all other major brigades on the Island had been equipped with a steam fire engine since before the war. In the aftermath it was the visitors from Ventnor that were sufficiently impressed and funded to invest in the new machine, becoming the first IW brigade to evolve into motorised firefighting later the same year.

Nicholas plugged away at his council but without result. His work as chairman of the IWFBF resulted in more positive outcomes. A major resurrection of the Federation occurred in March 1924 under his direction and led to a drill competition in combination with the Southern District of the National Fire Brigades Association in June. Although the event was hosted by Sandown, and largely organised by their Chief Officer Billups, it proved a resurgence of interest in the IWFBF that hadn’t held its own event since before the war. Although there wasn’t another IWFBF competition for two years, it was the start of a pattern that remained a fixture in IW firefighting until compelled to cease due to the demands of the Second World War.

Newport Fire Brigade's Ford Stanley motor fire engine.

When Nicholas finally convinced the Corporation that the town required a motor fire engine, they opted for a comparatively feeble Ford Stanley adaptation. Placed against the range of more powerful and robust engines sported by Ryde, Sandown and Ventnor, the Ford Stanley became a source of humiliation for the firemen in a manner not dissimilar to that experienced during the period of the black rooks helmet issue. Nevertheless, the brigade finally had powered wheels. Oddly Newport completely missed the steam period going straight from manual power to motor. In July 1927 Nicholas’ next battle was against the Corporation’s intent to reduce his manpower. Justification was based on a council assumption that a motor engine required less firefighters, but the argument they offered listed only the cost benefit of a lesser workforce.

Chief Officer Mursell’s case against the reduction was prescient when considering the needs of a notable fire in the town centre three months later, 4 October 1927. This incident, more than any other, evidenced the Chief’s command prowess in a manner, and at a speed, never seen before on the Isle of Wight, and represents the primary reason for my inclusion of him in this series of Leaders articles.

The incident inspired the IW County Press to fill a lengthy article, beginning with the following – The fire which broke out on Tuesday night at Messrs. Wadham and Sons’ furniture workshop, behind their premises in the market at Newport, might easily have resulted in the destruction of the greater part of the whole central block of business premises in the heart of the town bounded by St James’s and St Thomas’s squares, High Street, and Pyle Street.

Two views of the Wadhams store frontage from either end of St James's Square.

This was to prove the most threatening fire since the Great Fire of Newport of 13 November 1785, when seventeen buildings were destroyed, and two lives lost. That occurrence was engaged by a gathering of willing townsfolk under the direction of the overseers of the poor armed with the most basic of manual fire engines and no mains water system. In 1927 Chief Officer Mursell was experienced, leading well drilled firemen equipped with a modest but efficient motor fire engine drawing water from a plentiful main.

The building of origin was described as the old tannery located within the square space between the buildings that fronted the block on all sides, several of which were structurally abutted. One building not joined was Unity Hall, a six-foot passageway separating the two structures to the rear. Inside a committee meeting of the Victoria Sports Club was taking place. The attention of the committee members was distracted from sport by the sound of crackling, rapidly followed by an orange glare in the rear windows.

Newport Fire Brigade, circa 1925.

Coincidentally the members of the fire brigade were just leaving St Thomas’s having participated in a procession following a service of hallowing. As the committee members burst from the front of Unity Hall in an excitable state the firemen received the news and ploughed in, with the appliance driver dashing the short distance to the Guildhall to bring the Ford Stanley to the front of the Hall.

Chief Officer Mursell’s first impression of the situation was met by a view described in the County Press – the huge mass of flame proceeding from every portion of the building shot quite 50ft., into the air, showers of sparks flew in all directions threatening to ignite surrounding buildings, and the glare of the conflagration lit up the whole town and could be seen from distant parts of the Island.

It was distant parts of the Island to which the Chiefs first thoughts were directed. He tasked a policeman with making calls requesting assistance to the brigades of Ryde, Sandown, Shanklin and Ventnor. As Mursell’s men pressed into the torrid smoke-logged passageway, armed with a charged hose in an attempt to separate the flames from the rear of Unity Hall where the glazing was already cracking, the wheels of motor engines to the east were already thundering to the Island’s centre. Inside Unity Hall an army of helpers began removing furniture and valuables to St Thomas’s Square where a large crowd had gathered.

Mursell’s men of Newport continued pushing inwards from St Thomas’s Square. To the west in St James’s Square, Chief Officer Jolliffe tasked his Ryde men with hauling multiple hoses in through the Wadhams frontage to seek a route to the workshop. They discovered that iron doors separated the workshop from the retail area, preventing fire spread in that direction. Easing open the warped ingress to attack the flames the heat was tremendous but working in stifling conditions at ground level allowed Ryde’s firemen to hit the seat of the fire. At the same time in the High Street having forced entry to International Stores, Ventnor’s men dragged charged hose in and up the stairwell, heading to the rear of the property from where they threw open the windows and began their work. On all sides ladders were pitched and firemen clambered across the roofs with charged hoses to direct more water down into the blaze.

Every vantage point was identified and used where feasible. The premises of one Arthur Wood was opened to allow hose to be dragged through to the rear yard. It was most likely the men of Sandown and/or Shanklin that utilised this access to haul hose through and mount the roof an iron store to direct water into the rapidly disintegrating building of origin – this checked the advance of flames on the south side – according to the County Press. The men from the Bay also made an entry into the south-east corner of the block, through the Wheatsheaf Hotel, hauling more hose with them.

Praise was lavished on the Borough brigade, its Chief Officer, and those that attended to assist, at the council meeting of eight days later. Alderman Steel remarked that a visitor from London mentioned that he had seen no finer display of coordinated firefighting in his many years observing the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.

When Chief Officer Wilfred Harry Brown penned Sandown Fire Brigade’s Annual Report for publication on 1 October 1928, he listed three incidents attended by his brigade in the previous twelve months, the Newport incident being uppermost – The first of these fires was one of the largest the Island has seen for some years and the fact that five Brigades were present shows what can be done now that most of the Island Brigades have adopted motor fire engines.