A memorial was held in Glasgow to commemorate brave firefighters who lost their lives in a blaze 63 years ago.

On March 28, 1960, crews rushed to a fire at a whisky bond warehouse on Cheapside Street, where an explosion sent the building's 60ft walls crashing to the street.  

The tragedy resulted in the largest peacetime loss of life suffered by fire and rescue services in Britain, with nineteen men killed - fourteen from the Glasgow Fire Service and five from the Glasgow Salvage Corps.

Today, the men were honoured at a memorial service at Glasgow Necropolis, led by SFRS chaplains Rev Gordon Armstrong and Father Jim Thomson.

Glasgow Times:

SFRS Chief Officer Ross Haggart was joined by Deputy Assistant Chief Officer Stephen Wright, Local Senior Officer for Glasgow David Murdoch, and councillor Philip Braat, in a wreath-laying ceremony to pay tribute to those who lost their lives in the tragedy. 

CO Haggart said: "I am privileged to be here today to remember each of the nineteen brave men who tragically lost their lives fighting the Cheapside Street fire on a March evening in 1960.

"For many of us, gathered here 63 years later, we pay tribute to each of them as professional firefighters and colleagues, but they were also fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

"This bravery and selfless devotion is inherent in every firefighter. It’s what drives them to join the Service and is what sees them commit themselves without question to environments that some can never even imagine."

Glasgow Times:

Today's memorial was tinged with even greater sadness after the recent passing of firefighter Barry Martin following a fire in the former Jenner department store in Edinburgh in January.

 

CO Haggart added: "Our past helps to shape who we are and who we want to be. I am proud to say that the spirit and bravery of those colleagues lives on in those serving today."

The fourteen Glasgow Fire Service members who died at Cheapside Street were Sub Officers James Calder and John McPherson and Firefighters Christopher Boyle, William Crocket, Archibald Darroch, Alexander Grassie, George McIntyre, Daniel Davidson, Edward McMillan, Alfred Dickinson, William Watson, John Allan, Gordon Chapman, and Ian McMillan.

The five members of the Glasgow Salvage Corps were Deputy Chief Salvage Officer Edward Murray, Leading Salvageman James McLellan, Salvagemen Gordon McMillan, William Oliver and James Mungall.