~Fire Brigades.~--A volunteer brigade, to help at fires, was organised here in February 1836, but as the several companies, after introducing their engines, found it best to pay a regular staff to work them, the volunteers, for the time, went to the "right about." In 1863 a more pretentious attempt to constitute a public or volunteer brigade of firemen, was made, the members assembling for duty on the 21st of February, the Norwich Union engine house being the headquarters; but the novelty wore off as the uniforms got shabby, and the work was left to the old hands, until the Corporation took the matter in hand. A Volunteer Fire Brigade for Aston was formed at the close of 1878, and its rules approved by the Local Board on Jan. 7, 1879. They attended and did good service at the burning of the Reference Library on the following Saturday. August 23, 1879 the Aston boys, with three and twenty other brigades from various parts of the country, held a kind of efficiency competition at the Lower Grounds, and being something new in it attracted many. The Birmingham brigade were kept at home, possibly on account of the anniversary of the Digbeth fire. Balsall Heath and Harborne are also supplied with their own brigades, and an Association of Midland Brigades has lately been formed which held their first drill in the Priory, April 28, 1883. ~Fire Engines.~--In 1839 the Birmingham Fire Office had two engines, very handsome specimens of the article too, being profusely decorated with wooden battle axes, iron scroll-work, &c. One of these engines was painted in many colours; but the other a plain drab, the latter it was laughingly said, being kept for the Society of Friends, the former for society at large. The first time a "portable" or hand engine was used here was on the occurrence of a fire in a tobacconist's shop in Cheapside Oct. 29, 1850. The steam fire engine was brought here in Oct. 1877.--See "_Fire Engine Stations_" under "_Public Buildings_." ~Fire Grates.~--The first oven grate used in this district was introduced in a house at "the City of Nineveh" about the year 1818, and created quite a sensation. ~Fire Insurance Companies.~--The Birmingham dates its establishment from March 1805. All the companies now in existence are more or less represented here by agents, and no one need be uninsured long, as their offices are so thick on the ground round Bennet's Hill and Colmore Row, that it has been seriously suggested the latter thoroughfare should he rechristened and be called Insurance Street. It was an agent who had the assurance to propose the change.