Remembering crash tragedy firefighter
JACK Hammond of Kennerley Road, a reader of the Heritage magazine who is 100 this month, wrote to tell me recently that he was one of the children chased away from the wreckage of the fire engine crash which killed Supt Howard Beckwith in 1926.
A genuine hero, Supt Beckwith was a much decorated and loved local firefighter who started lifesaving in his youth, when he dived overboard to rescue a drowning shipmate as a young sailor.
After a stint with the London fire service he came to Stockport in 1897 when engines were still horse-drawn.
He oversaw the modernisation of the brigade with the building of the 1902 fire station in Mersey Square and introduced petrol driven fire engines including the ‘Mary Dalziel’ built in 1910.
An open bodied fire appliance with a 50ft wooden escape ladder, Supt Beckwith was in the front seat next to the driver as the engine swung out of Mersey Square in the early hours of December 29, 1926 to answer an emergency call.
Suddenly the offside front suspension collapsed, the driver lost control and the fire engine mounted the pavement and crashed through the parapet on Wellington Road Bridge, plunging down into what is now the bus station.
Most of the firemen leapt clear before the collapse, but the driver, Insp Rushby and Supt Beckwith fell with the appliance into Daw Bank.
Beck was trapped beneath and died from his injuries.
An outpouring of grief was expressed in a tremendous funeral procession along Wellington Road from the fire station to the Borough Cemetery, where a handsome memorial to the popular officer still stands.
A plaque beside the steps into Daw Bank recalls the years of service he gave and lives he saved. Nearby Beckwith House is named after him.
Supt Beckwith, who was 64, left a widow and joins that select group of public servants who are still remembered a century after their active service.
Not all readers of the Stockport Heritage Magazine have to be 100 - our stories appeal to young and old interested in times when life was slower paced yet community spirit was a vital living thing.
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