The People's Hero: Millais's The rescue and the image of the fireman in nineteenth-century art and media: J.E. Millais's celebrated painting can be best understood in the rich context of Victorian depictions of firefighters, who first became popular heroes in the nineteenth century

Apollo, Dec, 2004 by John A. Walker

In January 1854, John Everett Millais witnessed London firemen fighting a blaze and was so impressed by their courage that he decided to make it the subject of a painting. In his studio he recreated the light and smoke effects of fires by using a sheet of coloured glass and by burning planks on an iron sheet laid on the floor. The dramatic painting that resulted, The rescue (Fig. 3), shown at the Royal Academy in April 1855, focuses upon individual heroism by depicting a square-jawed fireman descending a carpeted staircase inside a middle-class home to escape a fire behind him. Dressed in the plain, functional, dark uniform and leather helmer and boots associated with the regime of Fire Chief James Braidwood, he is carrying no fewer than three children--a baby under his left arm, a girl under his right and a boy clinging to his back--towards the outstretched arms of their anxious but relieved mother. Charles Collins, all artist-friend of Millais, painted the hosepipe visible in the bottom left-hand corner. Subsequently, the 'rescue' or 'saved' motif became one of the most common in the iconography of firefighting, an unexplored subject that provides a rich context for Millais's celebrated painting.

[FIGURE 3 OMITTED]

In Britain, the popular perception of firefighters as heroes dates from the nineteenth century and was due to two main factors. First, the replacement of private, fire insurance office or company brigades, whose prime concern was the protection of property, by a paid, professional, municipal fire service in major cities whose priority was to save life and serve the whole community. Second, positive imagery of firemen was disseminated not only by the fine arts, but also by popular culture--the emerging mass media of prints, photograph, book and magazine illustrations, trade cards, magic lantern slide shows, cinema and advertising.

Millais was not the first British artist to depict a fireman. In 1805, a remarkably romantic aquatint image of a young fireman with others appeared as a plate in the book The Costume of Great Britain, written and engraved by William H. Pyne (Fig. 2). Despite the book's date, Pyne was depicting the costume of the previous century. The blue uniform of the central figure is that of the Sun Fire Office (founded in London in 1710), whose badge or brassard is displayed on his left sleeve. Another badge appears on the front of his horsehide fire-cap. He carries a pickaxe in his left hand and holds a lighted torch aloft in his right. The torch and the man's wild hair and dynamic pose imply a revolutionary or an incendiary, rather than someone who extinguishes fires. The spectators in the background remind us that firefighting is a highly visible activity and this surely contributes to its popularity.

[FIGURE 2 OMITTED]

Pyne's fireman belonged to one of the many private brigades maintained by insurance offices to protect properties they had insured. To identify those properties, firemarks--small plaques made from metal or wood adorned with the name or symbol of the company concerned--were fixed to external walls. A few firemarks depict firemen. For example, the copper firemark of the Protector Fire Insurance Company (1825-35) shows a spindly fireman using a so-called branch pipe to douse a blaze (Fig. 1). In this instance, he wears a low top hat, probably made from beaver, rather than a leather helmet. Red-coloured flames and black smoke are rendered in a stylised fashion. Old Westminster Bridge is in the background. The design, which also appears on the company's insurance certificates, derives from Robert Smirke (1752-1845), a painter, book illustrator and Royal Academician, who was one of the office's auditors.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Early fire pumps or engines were made from wood, operated manually and pulled by hand but, by 1830, horse-drawn engines had been introduced. Such engines rushing along city streets to answer alarms became a common sight and the subject naturally appealed to illustrators. Initially, they favoured a side rather than a frontal view, with engines moving across the picture space, as in an 1830 aquatint by James Pollard (1792-1867), London fire engines: The noble protectors of lives and property (Fig. 5). This print depicts no fewer than three horse-drawn engines belonging to different fire offices (the County, Phoenix and Westminster) racing one another--like the chariots of ancient Rome--along a London street to reach a night-time fire. The departure of brigades and engines from the entrances of fire stations became another subject popular with artists in Europe and the United States. In Paris, for instance, Gustave Courbet painted such a scene in 1850-51, although, in this instance, firemen are pulling the engines, not horses. (6)

[FIGURE 5 OMITTED]

When the London Fire Engine Establishment (LFEE) was founded in 1833 to unify the various private brigades, the post of Superintendent was created. Because of its importance, London fire chiefs became public figures whose characters, lives and deeds were much commented upon in the print media of the day. Painters, photographers and ceramicists portrayed them, and illustrators produced cartoons about them.