Orders, Decorations and Medals

A good Fire Brigade group of six awarded to Chief Officer T. H. Mather, who commanded East Ham Fire Station at the height of the Blitz, prior to taking command of a flotilla of fire-boats at Bristol: he would later recall the devastating raid of 7 September 1940, when around 200 Eastenders were killed, and another 800 wounded, and dealing with the carnage caused by an explosion aboard a ship carrying 15,000-tons of fuel at Avonmouth Docks

British War and Victory Medals (Bosn., M.F.A.); Defence Medal 1939-45; Jubilee 1935; Coronation 1937; Association of Professional Fire Brigade Officers Long Service, silver (Chief Officer, 1929), mounted as worn from two separate wearing bars (excepting the Defence Medal), generally good very fine (6) £400-450

Thomas Harold Mather was born at Port Talbot, Wales in August 1890, and first entered the Fire Brigade with an appointment in the Liverpool Fire Salvage Corps in 1912. Having then served in the Merchant Fleet Auxiliary in the Great War, he returned to his former profession with an appointment in an industrial fire brigade in Birkenhead, and thus ensued a long and memorable career best summarised by a feature which appeared in the (Portsmouth) News on 14 August 1970:

‘Three huge fires - when the bombers set Britain’s biggest gas-works ablaze, when Bristol suffered its biggest petrol-ship explosion, and when 600 homes were razed in Hartlepool - were recalled by a Portsmouth man who remembers them better than most people.

Drawing on a well-worn pipe in his quiet flat at Vernon Court, London Road, North End, former Chief Fire Officer Thomas Harold Mather reminisced on his 80th birthday over his career in the fire service.

Mr. Mather, one of only two Honorary Life Members of Britain’s senior fire organisation, the Institution of Fire Engineers, made history during his career by becoming the first professional Chief Fire Officer in two local authority brigades.

He remembered his three largest blazes, one of which was a peace-time fire, and two of which were wartime fires. First he recalled the “Great Hartlepool Fire” of January 1921, when flames destroyed part of Hartlepool’s docklands and residential areas. Mr. Mather was in charge of some of the fire-fighters, and he recalled how “great piles and stacks of pit-props and dock goods were blazing, and the great poles carrying overhead tramlines had buckled over like hair-pins. The fire swept through the docks and into houses. Before it was out, 600 families were homeless,” he said. “About one square mile of the city was ablaze at one time.”

Later in his career, while Chief Fire Officer of East Ham in London, Mr. Mather was in charge of fire-fighting during the Blitz when the biggest gas works in Britain and two of the largest dock installations were both in his care.

“On the night of 7 September 1940, the bombers hit the gas works in a particularly bad raid and before we had the fire under control, we had 40 fire engines on the scene. We suffered these kind of raids night after night until the fire service was nationalized,” he said.

During the latter years of the War, Mr. Mather moved to Bristol where he was in charge of 13 fire-boats - and it was there that he had “the biggest petrol fire of my whole career. It happened at Avonmouth Docks when a ship carrying 15,000 tons of petrol exploded, causing the petrol to cascade into the engine room where three engineers were drowned in petrol. The fire spread and soon the whole ship was blazing from end to end. There were fire engines on the dock side, and I had my fleet of fire-boats on the seaward side,” he said.

His distinguished career in the fire service started in 1912 when he joined the Liverpool Fire Salvage Corps after being in the Merchant Navy. From Liverpool he went to the Birmingham Fire Brigade, and then his maritime interests tempted him to join the Navy during World War One. While based in Portsmouth he watched as a Zeppelin flew over the city.

At the end of the War, he moved to an industrial fire brigade in Birkenhead and then he made history by becoming the first professional fire chief at the Seaham Harbour Combined Fire and Ambulance Brigade. There he was in charge of two fire brigades and an ambulance. He then became the first professional Chief Fire Officer at Gellygaer, near Cardiff in South Wales, where he was in charge of a main station and six sub-stations.

In 1928 he moved to the East Ham Fire Brigade as Chief Fire Officer, and there he stayed for 14 years, including the initial years of World War Two. After getting Blitz experience, he moved to Plymouth where he became Commandant of the Regional Fire School for nearly a year. Because of his maritime experience he was then moved to Bristol, where he took charge of the fleet of fire-boats. He remained there until the end of the War, and in 1946 he retired and moved to Portsmouth.’

Mather was awarded the Jubilee 1935 and Coronation 1937 Medals while serving as Chief Officer at East Ham (the official rolls refer); sold with original cutting of the above quoted newspaper feature, and an old picture postcard of East Ham Fire Station, the reverse ink inscribed, ‘Supt. T. H. Mather, Fire Station, East Ham, E. 6’.