The Cheapside Street Whisky Fire - March 28th, 1960

On this day in 1960, an explosive fire at a whisky warehouse claimed the lives of fourteen firefighters and five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
Hello and welcome to This Day in History Class, a
show that honors the dead by sharing their stories with
the living. I'm Gabe Lousier and today we're reflecting on

(00:21):
one of the worst peacetime fires in British history and
on the courageous first responders who gave their lives to
put it out. The day was March twenty eighth, nineteen sixty.

(00:42):
An explosive fire at a whiskey warehouse claimed the lives
of fourteen firefighters and five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps.
The event was and still is, the largest peacetime loss
of life ever suffered by the UK's Fire and Rescue services.
The blaze was first reported at seven fifteen that evening

(01:04):
by George Pinkstone, the superintendent of the El Dorado Ice
Cream Company. He had smelled burning wood, and after stepping
outside to investigate, he noticed smoke coming from a second
floor window of the adjoining warehouse. The building in question
was the Rbuckle Smith and Company Whisky Bond, which was
located on Cheapside Street in the Anderston section of Glasgow.

(01:28):
To this day, no one knows exactly how the fire started,
but once it did, there was plenty of fuel to
keep it burning. The bonded warehouse contained well over a
million gallons of whisky in vats and barrels, and more
than thirty thousand gallons of rum. Officials knew that if
the fire wasn't contained quickly, it would have no trouble

(01:49):
spreading to the neighboring buildings, a tobacco warehouse and the
aforementioned ice cream factory. Six minutes after the call came in,
the first cruise ved at the scene and began working
to extinguish the blaze. Soon after, they were joined by
the Saint Mungo fireboat, which had traveled along the River
Clyde from a nearby marine fire station. By that point,

(02:13):
firefighters had already entered the front of the warehouse to
search for the fire's point of origin. Meanwhile, on Waroak
Street at the back of the warehouse, another crew was
working to extinguish flames that were spilling out of a
ground floor window. More fire chiefs arrived a few minutes later,
and after assessing the situation, they decided three additional pumps

(02:35):
were needed, bringing the total number on the scene to eight.
The request was sent at seven forty nine pm, but
just moments later, the liquor inside the warehouse ignited and
all hell broke loose. The massive explosion toppled the sixty
foot high walls at the front and back of the building,
burying the crew members on either side. On Cheapside Street,

(02:59):
three firefighters were killed instantly by the falling rubble, and
on Warock Street the death toll was even higher. When
the back walls collapsed, eleven firefighters were crushed to death,
as were five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps. The
explosion made the task of the surviving firefighters even harder.

(03:19):
Not only had it greatly reduced their manpower, it also
blasted flaming whiskey barrels into the streets, creating rivers of
burning liquor that threatened to start new fires. The entire
city was bathed in an eerie orange glow, and bright
blue flames as high as forty feet were reported. Every
firefighter and the Greater Glasgow area, off duty or not,

(03:43):
was called in to fight the blaze. In total, four
hundred and fifty crew members responded, but despite their best efforts,
the fire still spread to the neighboring buildings by the
time it was finally extinguished nearly a full week later,
the whiskey and the tobacco warehouse, the ice cream factory
and a shipyard were all destroyed. The firefighters and Salvage

(04:08):
Corps members who gave their lives in defense of their
city were laid to rest at a tomb in the
Glasgow Necropolis. One of their surviving comrades, Fireman James Dunlop,
was awarded the George Medal for Civilian Gallantry and recognition
of his bravery. The Cheapside Fire of nineteen sixty had
a lasting impact on Scotland's largest city. It validated the

(04:32):
concerns that the Fire Brigades Union had been expressing for years,
including the need for stricter fire safety regulations and citywide
fire inspections. Unfortunately, those much needed reforms were slow to
be adopted, and Glasgow would suffer several more devastating fires
in the following decade. The worst of the bunch was

(04:53):
in nineteen sixty eight, when a furniture factory just a
few blocks away from Cheapside Street caught fire and twenty
two workers were killed deadly. Fires were so prevalent in
Glasgow between the nineteen forties and nineteen seventies that had
earned the nickname tinderbox City. Glasgow's propensity for fires stemmed

(05:14):
not only from the Scottish whiskey industry and its highly
flammable products, but from the large number of nineteenth century
buildings it still contained. Glasgow was once a major port city,
and many cavernous warehouses had been built along its waterfront
in the eighteen hundreds. Most of them were too large
for sprinkler systems to be effective, and the materials and

(05:36):
techniques used to construct them weren't chosen with fire safety
and mind. All of that was also true of cities
like London and Berlin, but many of their problematic structures
had been destroyed during World War Two. Glasgow, on the
other hand, had been spared the brunt of those bombings,
leaving most of its fire prone architectures still intact and

(05:57):
ready to burn. In the mid nineteen seventies, on the
heels of yet another deadly fire, city planners began to
rethink the way they designed and constructed buildings, and Glasgow
officials finally devoted more resources to fire prevention and management.
The changes were gradual, but over time Glasgow shook off

(06:17):
its reputation as tinderbox city and became a much safer
and more fire resistant place to live. Today, a memorial
service for the victims of the Cheap Side Fire will
be held in Glasgow, just as it is each year.
In that way, the residents continue to honor the memory
of the fallen men whose self sacrifice helped secure the

(06:39):
rebirth of their city. The names of those first responders
were James Calder, John McPherson, John Allen, Christopher Boyle, Gordon Chapman,
William Crockett, Archibald Darrow, Daniel Davidson, Alfred Dickinson, Alexander Gracie,
George McIntyre, Edward McMillan, Ian McMillan, William Watson, Edward Murray,

(07:03):
James McClellan, Gordon McMillan, James Mungle, and William Oliver. May
they rest in peace. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you
now know a little more about history today than you
did yesterday. If you'd like to keep up with the show,
consider following us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at TDI

(07:25):
HC Show. You can also rate and review the show
on Apple Podcasts, or you can drop me a line
directly by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.
Thanks to Chandler May's for producing the show, and thanks
to you for listening. I'll see you back here again
tomorrow for another day in History class