This document came to us via the local studies library in April 1984 and was then assigned the accession number 3196. It was originally found amongst the papers of a private individual of Kennington.
It was in 1875 that the town got its own volunteer fire brigade and obtained a fire engine. In 1879 however, the service was tested and found to be wanting when a fire broke out at the mop factory of T. and W. Early in the High street and destroyed it despite it being within a few yards of the river and behind the fire station. This original fire brigade had its headquarters in Millin's yard and continued to operate from there as a horse drawn unit until 1927. It was responsible for the municipal area of Witney only: in the 1920s this did not include Cogges or Newland. After a ruinous fire at Pritchard's Glove works in Newland which the Witney fire brigade refused to attend, the Urban District Council stepped in to organise a larger fire brigade. An old barn behind the Corn Exchange became the new headquarters and today the fire service has a modern building put up in the 1960s on the Welch Way development. The whereabouts of other records of the fire brigade are not known.
Catalogued by Jeanette Grisold, November 1993.