MAJM, William Chatterton’s life at sea and in the Fire Brigade.
Derby Evening Telegraph March 25th 1938 when he celebrated his 90th birthday.
Born at Spalding, Lincolnshire, an inherent spirit of adventure was in evidence from his early days. When he was 13 he ran away to sea, and for a year worked on different sailing ships voyaging between English ports. At the end of this period, he took a big chance and signed on in a merchantman bound for India. For seven years he sailed the Seven Seas before the mast and visited almost every country of the world, as he puts it. In Calcutta, a few years after the Indian Mutiny, he was witness to the scenes of terror which followed reprisals against the mutineers. In Madras he saw the last procession of the dreaded Juggernaut car, although on this occasion cordons of armed militia prevented frenzied natives from throwing themselves to a terrible death beneath its spiked wheels. To Freemantle, premier port of Western Australia, he sailed in a windjammer with the last ship-load of Government sponsored emigrants, women sent out to become brides of convicts in the penal settlements of the Antipodes.
William might well have become a policeman instead of a fireman. While in Australia he and three other sailors temporarily deserted ship and tried to enlist in the Australian police force. They were told to get back to their boat and they did.
One day when he had returned to London after a foreign voyage, Mr. Chatterton decided to join one of the London fire brigades. It might seem a strange step, from sailor to fireman, but in those days sailors stood a far better chance of enrolment in a fire brigade on account of their experience in climbing!
He made his application and was accepted, and for the next 28 years was on duty at every important outbreak of fire in the London area. On the very day of the Alhambra fire he was appointed an officer, following two years’ service on the River Thames Fire Float.
When fire broke out in the old Alhambra Theatre, Leicester Square London in 1882, all the resources of London’s fire brigades were concentrated in an effort to save the building. Working feverishly in one room three firemen heard a shout of warning, and then a ceiling collapsed, burying them. One of the men, badly injured, struggled to release his comrades, without success. His strength exhausted, he collapsed. When he was found they thought he was dead, He was not, however, and yesterday he celebrated his 90th birthday. As a result of injuries suffered in the Alhambra blaze, he was ill, although he was quickly able to resume work. His two companions were less fortunate, they died. He had many narrow escapes during his career in London, and risked his life on innumerable occasions
He was one of the most important officers of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade when he decided to accept the appointment with the Midland Railway. He then held the rank or Superintendent. His first task when he came to Derby was the reorganisation of all the railway company’s fire brigades. This took him four years, but it was worth it, he thinks.
Mr. Chatterton saw vast changes in the methods of fire-fighting and in the course of his work in London and Derby, and in some of these changes he himself played a big part.
When he first joined the London Brigade all the pumping was done by hand by the crowds of spectators, who worked in relays, their energy sustained by gallon of beer!
Mr. Chatterton was the first man to perfect a chemical extinguisher and this he achieved while he was at Derby. His first extinguisher was a crude affair and was worked by the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda. But it worked, and has since been elaborated. William died on the 21st March 1946 age 95.
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Topic: Women emigrants last ship. (Read 631 times)