Department of Scientific and Industrial Research and successors: Fire Testing Station...

AY 1

1944-1973

This series consists of statistical analyses of fires, notes, minutes and papers of the Fire Research Board, fire chemistry notes, fire physics and engineering notes, fire research notes, and internal notes, together with reports on various aspects of research into causes, prevention and elimination of fires, carried out by the joint organisation, and submitted papers of the Fire Research Board.

Many of the volumes are indexed.

For other related records, see DSIR 48

Public Record(s)

English

• Fire Research Board, 1946-1949
• Fire Research Station, 1949-1977
• Fire Testing Station, 1935-1949

84 files and volumes

Subject to 30 year closure

From 1974 Department of the Environment

Topics

Research

A Fire Testing Station was established at Elstree, Hertfordshire in 1935 under the joint authority of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, the Fire Officers Committee which represented insurance interests, and various other organisations.

Work undertaken here drew on that of the fire insurance companies, particularly the Fire Officers Committee's fire testing station at Manchester, which had been involved in research into fire from 1909.

During the Second World War, fire research was undertaken by the Fire Research Division of the Ministry of Home Security. In April 1946 this division was taken over by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research.

In that year the department and the Fire Offices' Committee established a Joint Fire Research Organisation to conduct research on all aspects of prevention and extinction of fires. Those fire insurance companies who were not members of the committee were also eligible to join. The costs of the organisation were to be shared equally by the department and the committee, and as part of its contribution to the capital cost the committee transferred its Fire Testing Station to the government.

A Fire Research Board was also appointed in October 1946 to make recommendations for fire research and to supervise the conduct of investigations at the station, which was in 1949 renamed the Fire Research Station. The members of the board were nominated jointly by the department and the committee, the chairman by the department.

In 1965 responsibility for the Joint Fire Research Organisation passed to the Ministry of Technology and the board ceased to function.

The research station passed to the Department of Trade and Industry in 1970 and the Department of the Environment in 1971. In 1972, it amalgamated with the Building Research Station and the Forest Products Research Laboratory to form the Building Research Establishment of the Department of the Environment.