Black Firefighters in Britain: Service, Courage and the Fight for Equality

George Arthur Roberts: learning between emergencies

At New Cross Fire Station during the Second World War, George Arthur Roberts helped colleagues find something useful to do between emergencies. He organised discussion and education groups, bringing learning into a workplace shaped by danger and long periods of waiting. His British Empire Medal, awarded in 1944, recognised both his duties at the station and his contribution to those groups. The citation preserves a fuller picture of service than a photograph of a firefighter tackling flames can convey. Protecting a city also involved maintaining the knowledge, confidence and relationships of the people doing the work. ¹

Roberts had been born in Trinidad in 1891 and had served in the British Army during the First World War. By the next war he was living in south London. He joined the Auxiliary Fire Service in 1938, served at New Cross and became a Leading Fireman in 1943. His career places Black participation in British firefighting well before the post-war Caribbean migration most commonly associated with the Windrush generation. ¹

Training for a city under attack

The Auxiliary Fire Service was established nationally in 1938 to strengthen local fire services in preparation for war. New Cross became one of its training schools. Recruits undertook sixty hours of instruction, including practical work with hoses, ladders and pumps. This was organised preparation for dangerous tasks, requiring people to learn equipment and procedures together. When war began, six auxiliary stations attached to New Cross operated from local schools. Classrooms and playgrounds became part of the infrastructure of civilian defence. ²

Women also entered the wartime service in roles including despatch riding and control-room work. These duties connected an incident with the people and equipment needed to respond. Remembering them widens the history beyond the crews visible at a burning building. Information, communication and practical training were essential parts of the same emergency organisation. ²

Black women on the home front

Historian Stephen Bourne’s research for the London Fire Brigade records several kinds of Black wartime service. His adopted aunt, Esther Bruce, worked as a hospital cleaner and volunteered as a fire watcher. Wearing a helmet and carrying the equipment needed to tackle incendiaries, she stood on hospital roofs during air raids. Her recollections acknowledged fear as well as determination. She was a civilian volunteer undertaking hazardous work, rather than a regular operational firefighter; that distinction helps recover the range of people involved. ³

Bourne also recorded the memories of actor Cleo Sylvestre about her mother, Laureen Goodare. Goodare worked at Manchester Square Fire Station, apparently recording fires and fallen bombs in the incident room. Family testimony supplies details that formal personnel records may not preserve. The Brigade acknowledges that it cannot yet establish how many Black people served in this period. The surviving accounts reveal substantial contributions without justifying an exact total or an assumption that every participant’s name has been recovered. ³

Frank Bailey challenges a barrier

Frank Bailey arrived in London from British Guiana in 1953 with experience of challenging segregation in a New York hospital. At a trade union conference, he heard that Black men were supposedly unsuitable for firefighting because they lacked the physical strength or education required. He decided to apply. In 1955, he joined West Ham Fire Brigade and worked at Silvertown. The act of applying confronted an assumption about ability with a person willing to undergo the same demands as other recruits. ⁴

Bailey later recalled carrying a colleague to safety after the man fainted during a ladder drill. He became his station’s Fire Brigades Union branch secretary, connecting operational work with representation of fellow workers. He left the Brigade in 1965. A former colleague subsequently suggested that being passed over for promotion because of his race had contributed to that decision. The account is an attributed explanation, rather than a surviving formal finding, but it raises a question that continued to matter: entry into a service did not guarantee equal opportunities within it. ⁴

The union’s stated position

The Fire Brigades Union’s historical record shows that opposition to the colour bar had entered its formal policy by 1945. A conference resolution urged members to expose and challenge racial exclusion. In 1954, the union connected that position to colonial policy, supporting higher living standards, democratic and trade union rights, and an end to racial barriers. These arguments placed the treatment of workers in Britain alongside the conditions facing people elsewhere in the empire. ⁵

At a London conference in 1955, delegate Tom Branch described an agreement with London County Council against barring Black recruits. A 1962 editorial reaffirmed that entry qualifications should apply equally regardless of skin colour. These declarations are evidence of organised opposition to discrimination. They do not establish that every workplace or union member followed the policy. The difference between an agreed principle and a worker’s daily experience would give later generations of Black firefighters considerable work to do. ⁵

Albert McLean: from Trinidad to Scotland

Albert McLean’s working life crossed several fire services. He joined a volunteer unit in Arima, Trinidad, in 1955, then entered Northamptonshire’s fire brigade in November 1957. In an account published by the Royal British Legion, he remembered kitchen duties alongside firefighting, including baking skills learned from his mother. Such recollections restore the ordinary shared life of a station: meals, jokes and routines through which colleagues came to know one another. ⁶

After fifteen years in Northamptonshire, McLean moved to Glasgow as a Station Officer. He remembered initial anxiety followed by a warm welcome, and described leadership as doing the work he expected of others. He later received a commendation after helping a man stranded while climbing a multi-storey building in Cambuslang. By retirement, he had completed thirty-two years of service across Trinidad, England and Scotland. His career involved practical rescue skills, promotion and the responsibility of leading a crew. ⁶

A parliamentary motion tabled by Brendan O’Hara in October 2018 also acknowledged the difficult memories carried by emergency workers. It noted McLean’s presence at Glasgow’s Kilbirnie Street fire in 1972, in which seven colleagues died. The tribute recognised both public protection and exposure to loss. Service history includes these burdens as well as awards and successful rescues. ⁷

Samantha Samuels finds a route into the service

Samantha Samuels had not imagined becoming a firefighter until she saw a newspaper advertisement showing a woman rescuing a child. She joined the West Midlands service through its junior firefighter programme at sixteen. In her account for the Local Government Association, she explained how that early training helped her prepare for full-time service. An image had suggested a possibility; a structured opportunity allowed her to explore it. ⁸

Samuels also described the expectations attached to being a visible Black woman in the service. People in her community looked to her as an example. That recognition could be encouraging and demanding at the same time. Her recollections show why recruitment involves more than issuing an invitation to apply: someone needs a credible way to learn what the work requires and to imagine themselves carrying it out. ⁸

In a later interview with the Workforce Development Trust, Samuels discussed barriers encountered as the first Black woman to become an operational firefighter in her service. Negative assumptions had affected her confidence, particularly when she sought a different role. She found support through an FBU educational school in the 1990s, where meeting others helped her recognise that she was not facing difficulties alone. ⁹

Mentoring also mattered. Assistant Chief Fire Officer Sarah Warnes became her coach, helping her identify strengths and pursue development. Samuels went on to study leadership and management and reach Group Manager level. She helped establish WMFS Inspire, a staff engagement group for people from minority ethnic backgrounds and allies. Her own experience of receiving encouragement informed work to create support for other colleagues. ⁹

Building a network across brigades

The FBU’s Black and Ethnic Minority Members organisation began as an informal network in 1994 and became an official union section in 1999. Its thirtieth-anniversary account identifies Micky Nicholas, Les Bowman, Paul Greaves and Mark Brown among those instrumental in its development. They organised in response to racial abuse, victimisation and discrimination across fire and rescue services. A national network could connect people who might otherwise be isolated within individual stations or brigades. ¹⁰

At its 2024 educational school in Sheffield, members combined discussion with remembrance. They marked Samuels’s retirement after thirty-four years and unveiled a bench for Leila Asoko, a regional representative who had died in 2021. Asoko was remembered for her activism and empathy. These acts show how a representative organisation also preserved relationships and knowledge across generations. Its history lived through the people who answered questions, offered support and kept others involved. ¹⁰

Reaching people who had not considered firefighting

Dawne Stephenson joined the London Fire Brigade in 1984 and worked on changing recruitment. She was not an operational firefighter, but her account explains the work behind attempts to broaden entry. She questioned campaigns that advertised to women and minority communities without first helping people understand the role or feel confident approaching a station. Her outreach team attended schools, universities, community events, barbershops and hair salons, taking information into places where potential applicants already gathered. ¹¹

Stephenson stressed the importance of seeing someone familiar in a uniform. Recruits reached through outreach could themselves become people who encouraged others. The process depended on relationships developed before an application arrived, not simply on selecting from a pile of forms. Her testimony also makes the wider workforce visible: staff who organised recruitment helped determine who would eventually train, serve and advance through the Brigade. ¹¹

Learning the job and supporting colleagues

For Emmanuel Williams, the attraction began with living behind Old Kent Road Fire Station and watching firefighters train. He visited the station as a boy and held on to the ambition while studying for a degree and working abroad. When recruitment opened, he applied and joined London Fire Brigade in 2015. His account describes a family commitment to public service, with a brother in the police and a sister in nursing. ¹²

Williams particularly valued the crew who helped him learn. Their guidance turned enthusiasm into growing confidence about responding to the next incident. His story provides a useful view of belonging at work: an ambition formed outside a station was sustained by the colleagues encountered inside it. Training and mutual confidence were part of the attraction of the occupation itself. ¹²

Karen Bell’s account as the FBU section’s national chair in 2024 offers another perspective on colleagues’ support. She had initially taken little interest in trade unionism, but recognised its importance after joining the fire service. Representation could give a voice to people facing unfair treatment. She described particular satisfaction in seeing members whom she had supported through difficult periods doing well afterwards. Much of this work took place away from ceremonies or publicity, through individual cases and persistent attention to someone else’s circumstances. ¹³

Achievement and unfinished change

The record of service sits alongside continuing evidence of unequal treatment. The independent review of London Fire Brigade’s culture, chaired by Nazir Afzal and published in November 2022, heard from more than two thousand current and former staff and community participants. It identified poor treatment of Black, Asian and other minority ethnic staff, alongside discrimination affecting women and other groups. It also exposed problems with leadership and fear of speaking out about abuse. ¹⁴

Those findings prevent a history of individual achievement from becoming a claim that equality had already been secured. Courage at an incident, professional skill and a commitment to colleagues did not protect every firefighter from mistreatment within their own organisation. The Brigade’s published account acknowledged that previous attempts to address longstanding problems had failed. Listening to staff experiences was therefore part of understanding how the institution worked, rather than an optional addition to its operational history. ¹⁴

In its progress account available in October 2026, the Brigade reported that most review recommendations had been completed or incorporated into everyday work. Recruitment and progression remained an explicit area for further action. These are the organisation’s reported measures of change, rather than proof that every employee’s experience had improved. The history continues through that practical question: whether people who commit themselves to protecting others can train, work and progress with dignity in their own service. ¹⁵

Sources

[1] London Fire Brigade Museum. George Arthur Roberts BEM.

[2] London Fire Brigade Museum. New Cross Fire Station: The Second World War.

[3] London Fire Brigade Museum. Stephen Bourne, Black “front liners” and fire service personnel during the London Blitz.

[4] London Fire Brigade Museum. Frank Bailey.

[5] Fire Brigades Union. FBU conference opposes the colour bar in the fire and rescue service; Historical timeline: 1955.

[6] Royal British Legion, published by Black History Month. Albert McLean, Firefighter; 28 August 2021.

[7] UK Parliament. Albert McLean: Early Day Motion 1767; 29 October 2018.

[8] Local Government Association. Meet Samantha: first-person account.

[9] The Workforce Development Trust. Women in the fire service: An interview with Samantha Samuels; International Women’s Day 2024.

[10] Fire Brigades Union, Firefighter magazine. Thirty years – and still plenty to be done; October–November 2024.

[11] London Fire Brigade. Dawne Stephenson, Organisational Development Change Manager; Undated historical interview.

[12] London Fire Brigade. Emmanuel Williams, Firefighter; Undated interview following 2015 recruitment.

[13] Fire Brigades Union, Firefighter magazine. Karen Bell: Black and Ethnic Minority Members section national chair; April–May 2024.

[14] London Fire Brigade. Independent Culture Review: background and findings; Review published November 2022; current institutional summary.

[15] London Fire Brigade. Improving our workplace culture: programme progress; 2026 progress account, accessed 23 October 2026.

Sources checked on 23 October 2026.