The Bradford City Fire Brigade: Commemorating over 200 Years' Service to the City of Bradford Including the Centenary of the Low Moor Explosion

394pp, profusely illustrated in black and white.  In laminated, illustrated card covers.  4to.  Some gentle edge wear to card covers else clean, neat, bright and tight throughout.  Bradford's rapid development into an industrial town, full of 'dark satanic mills', where hundred of people worked and hundreds of looms and spinning wheels and carding engines added great weight to the structures.  Their Achilles heel was their timber floorings and huge open plan spaces - awaiting the spark that would ignite into flames.  Many caught fire, and this book explores the establishment of a well-equipped, official fire-fighting force and its series of enigmatic leaders. Rocked by one of the biggest peace-time explosions in 1916, reforms turned the Bradford City Fire Brigade into one of the country's premier fire-fighting forces.