Grand Parade Engine House (1837–1871)
Before the construction of its first central fire station, the town's engine and axe companies lacked a space where they could service their equipment and conduct business, such as meetings and other functions. The buildings were truly “engine houses,” as their sole purpose was to store the town's engines and related equipment. The Union Engine Company needed to use the blacksmith shops to maintain the engines after a fire. After six years of discussion between the Company and the Board of Fire Wardens, combined with the events of 1836, the necessity for a central engine house within the Town of Halifax could not be ignored any longer.
The Union Engine Company wrote directly to the Court of Quarter Sessions on July 29, 1836, to explain their situation:
To the Hon. Court of Q. Sessions - Halifax, July 29, 1836
Your Honors,
At the last quarterly meeting of the Union Engine Comp., the undersigned were appointed a committee to bring under your consideration the deplorable condition of the Engine Houses.
The Comp. have always been under an obligation to their friends the Blacksmiths, to clean their Engines after a fire in their shops, which trouble, loss, and annoyance they are determined to rid themselves off. Consequently, we have no other resource than again to press upon your consideration the necessity of having the Engine Houses enlarged and made convenient for the purpose of taking the Engines to after a Fire.
In again forcing the subject upon your consideration we do it from the real motive of Public Service and we hope it will not be deemed irrelevant to the point in question to suppose that on the same night that a fire might happen in the tenement of some poor family, and having scarcely housed the Engines, to find an alarm proceeding from one of your honour’s houses. What would be the consequence? Plainly this: that not having a house properly provided with Fires, Boilers, &c., where the Engines may be taken to pieces immediately and thoroughly thawed and dried, we would find to our extreme mortification and annoyance that we could be of no service on the occasion and your honors' lives and properties left at the mercy of the devouring element, but this is not all from the total apathy and indifference to our several petitions on the subject. It has a tendency to produce a like indifference in the several Members of the Comp., and instead of taking pride in it, and vieing [sic] with each other who should be of the greatest service, the generality is, it is of no use to exerting ourselves, the heads of the Fire department do not assist us by placing all the means in their power to make the thing effective.
We beg leave respectfully to call your serious attention to this Great Public Want, and if not heeded shall consider all further remonstrance in vain.
Signed Thomas Cassidy, G. Little, W. Caldwell, R. Bigby, B. Smithers, W. Crawford.
Never had a letter from the Union Engine Company (or any other company) been this scathing in its criticism of the authorities. Tenders were called in 1836 for a structure measuring 45’ by 30’ and to be built in Grand Parade facing Argyle St in front of St. Paul’s Church for a sum between £300 and £400. While the builder remains elusive, we know that Henry G. Hill, a member of the Union Engine Company, drafted the building plans.
The upper story was reserved for the exclusive use of the firefighters, who, at their own expense, carpeted and furnished the spacious room and used it to host gala events with “sumptuous dinners and glittering dances”. Immediately underneath were housed three of the U.E.C.’s manually drawn and hand-pumped fire engines (along with the related equipment), and the bottom story housed all the equipment of the Axe Fire Company.