Report of the Royal Commission on Fire Brigades and Fire Prevention, 1922, together with Minutes of Evidence

274pp (Report); iv, 690pp (Minutes of Evidence), with two large folding maps bound in at rear.  In brown cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering on front panel and gilt titles on leather labels on spine.  Folio.  Boards are mottled, faded and rubbed and scuffed on corners and around spine joints.  Lower spine label scuffed. Front and rear endpapers, and title page of the Minutes of Evidence heavily tanned.  Previously in the ownership of the Library of the Scottish Office, with minor library annotations on front free endpaper as well as the remains of a removed bookplate.  The title page of the Report has a pencil annotation, else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.  Without central control or regulation many urban authorities had developed separate, independent fire-fighting arrangements without regard to neighbouring authorities. The Royal Commission on Fire Brigades and Fire Prevention was instituted to examine the problems this caused and to make recommendations for improvement. The Commission made many recommendations, including that the Home Office should become the central co-ordinator, a recommendation which was not formally enacted until 1938.  The Report constitutes a thorough and detailed examination of fire brigades, and together with the Minutes of Evidence (transcripts of all the Commission’s examination of witnesses) form the most comprehensive snapshot of fire-fighting arrangements.