A History of Albury

Historical source: This account is based on a talk given by Mark Trebley and published in the Albury & District Historical Society Inc. Bulletin 510 in March 2011.

The history of the Fire Brigade in Albury can be divided into three periods: the “loosely formed” Fire Brigade, the Albury Volunteer Fire Brigade and the NSW Fire Brigades.

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The loosely formed Fire Brigade

Details of the very early days of the Fire Brigade are sketchy. However, in the 1860s there is evidence of a loosely formed brigade of about 12 men organised to attend and fight fires in the town. This brigade was equipped with a hand cart fondly named “Old Fogabolla”.

Old Fogabolla was a four-wheeled cart with a metal cistern containing a hand-operated pump mounted on the back. There are no details of who built the vehicle or what happened to it in the end. It is known that when the loosely formed brigade was disbanded in 1885, Old Fogabolla was given to Corowa for a time. It was later returned to Albury and used by the Albury Volunteer Fire Brigade for about five years. It was stored in a shed at the town tip, located off Dean Street in what became Dean Square.

If a fire occurred in Albury, the firemen would hurry to the shed, drag Old Fogabolla out and pull it to the site of the fire. There they would await the arrival of the first water cart. Water was poured into the cistern and, with six men on either side of the cart working the “brakes”, firefighting would proceed using the hose attached to the pump.

There was no reticulated water in Albury, so the water supply was largely in the hands of licensed water carters who drew water from the river at the end of Hume Street. Hefty incentives were offered to the carters to rush to the fire scene: £1 for the first cart to arrive and one shilling and sixpence for subsequent carts. A condition of the licence agreement was that carters had to respond to a fire call at any time and keep their carts full overnight.

The Albury Volunteer Fire Brigade

In the mid-1880s, brewer Walter Billson moved to Albury from Beechworth. Billson had been a fireman in Beechworth and was not satisfied with the standard of the brigade in Albury. In 1885, he called a public meeting chaired by the mayor, at which 50 men put their names down for the newly formed Albury Volunteer Fire Brigade (AVFB). This number was reduced to about 30 and training began in earnest.

Equipment was purchased from Beechworth. It included a hose reel, but because Albury still did not have a reticulated water supply, the brigade used a wooden standpipe in its training drills.

Fire brigades had an obvious practical purpose, but they also had a strong social function centred on inter-brigade competitions. Rivalry was fierce and medals were presented to successful teams. The AVFB competed at Sandhurst in Victoria and came third in the six-man hose-and-reel event.

In 1886, the Albury Brigade organised and conducted an inter-colonial competition that attracted teams from the Australian colonies and New Zealand. Financially, the competition fell short of expectations and each brigade member had to contribute 35 shillings to cover the shortfall.

Those who served in the AVFB included Walter Billson, Thos Ryan, Thos Chubb, Lew Winzer, Dan Watson, Jim McIntyre, John McEachern, Ernie Scanlon, Bob and Ernie Sharp, Jim Higgins, Bill Frew, Fred Bohr, Ted Frauenfelder, Bill Kappler, Ted Grass and Phil McCairne.

Albury’s early fires and water supply

Albury had its first big fire in December 1865. The fire, in a shop in Dean Street, was caused by a gaslight in the shop window. The AVFB responded and was able to save the adjoining buildings, reportedly “utilising buckets”. It is unclear whether water was bucketed onto the threatened properties or used to fill the cistern on Old Fogabolla.

In 1886, a reticulated water system was installed in Albury, with a pumping station at Mungabareena feeding a reservoir on Eastern Hill. Several sizes of mains were used, so the brigade had to carry two different standpipes. Also in that year, the brigade moved from the tip site to a shed alongside the Rose Hotel in Kiewa Street.

Their stay there was brief. In 1889, they moved back to Dean Street to a rough two-storey structure beside the Mechanics Institute. The building had a tower at the rear where it seems likely a bell was installed. The tower could also be used as a watchtower and was probably used to dry the canvas hoses.