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Frederick Davies: the heroic Willesden Fireman

This is a story of incredible bravery just after the end of WWII. On 8 May 1945 the whole country celebrated the end of the war in Europe and on 15 August the war against Japan ended. 

A week later at 1.20 in the early morning of 22 August, Percy Coston a Green Line bus driver, who lived in Harlesden was woken up by his daughter shouting, ‘Fire, Dad!’ He got up and found the fire was next door at No.5 Craven Park Road. From the street he saw two young girls shouting for help from a window on the second floor which was on fire. 

Percy ran the 250 yards to the Jubilee Clock where he pulled the fire alarm causing a bell to ring at the local station. The Willesden fire brigade responded within minutes and took him back to Craven Park Road where they set up their escape ladder. No.5 was a five-room house above a shop and the two upper floors were well alight by the time they arrived. 

Fireman Frederick Davies ran up the ladder followed by Leading Fireman Norman Thorn. At this stage the flames were pouring from the windows when Davies tried to enter. The heat was so intense he climbed into the window with his back towards the flames and flung himself into the burning room. A few minutes later he returned to the window with eight-year-old Avril Pike in his arms and he passed the unconscious little girl to Thorn at the top of the ladder. He then turned back into the blazing bedroom to search for her 11-year-old sister Jean. Thorn was descending the ladder holding Avril under his arm when he heard Davies scream and throw himself onto the top of the escape with his tunic completely on fire. He landed on Thorn who tried to beat out the flames with his bare hands. The rest of the crew helped them down, but poor Avril was already dead. Fred and Norman were taken to the Central Middlesex Hospital at Park Royal where Davies tragically died from his injuries at 10.30 on 23 August. Avril and Jean Pike died but their parents and 14-year-old sister Rene survived. 


Copy of Reginald Mills original painting of the fire at Craven Park Road by Ernie Monk (ArtUK, Brent Museum)

At the inquest Alfred Pike a GPO postman, said he and his wife Amelia were asleep on the first floor when he was woken up by the smoke and the crackling of the flames from the kitchen which had caught fire. He could not get up the stairs which were ablaze, so he climbed out of the window on the first floor and up the drainpipe to the roof. But it was impossible to get through to the sisters’ bedroom. He said, ‘The roof was all ablaze – flames shooting out and the heat was terrific’. Dr Teare, the pathologist, said both Avril and Jean who was found in the bedroom, died of carbon monoxide poisoning from the smoke and would not have suffered greatly. The verdict was accidental death. On 28 August they were buried at Willesden New Cemetery in Franklyn Road where large numbers of people watched the ceremony. 

No.5 Craven Park Road, 2022

On 30 August, huge crowds lined the route from the home of Frederick Davies at 36 Fourth Avenue Queen’s Park to the Kensal Green Cemetery where he was buried. 

In February 1946 Frederick Davies was posthumously awarded the George Cross by the King - this is the highest civilian award. The official citation ends by saying;

‘The gallantry and devotion to duty displayed by Fireman Davies was of the highest order. He knew the danger he was facing, but with complete disregard for his own safety he made a most heroic attempt to rescue the two children. In doing so he lost his life’. 

Frederick Davies was born in 1913 at 23 Goodwin Road Shepherds Bush where his father was a horse-drawn hackney cab driver. By 1935 Fred was a stock keeper at Messrs Edward Saunders a paper and printing company at Park Royal. Here he met Annie Francis Baylis and they married at St Jude’s Kensal Green on 19 December 1936. They lived with Annie’s family at 36 Fourth Avenue. Her father Stephen Baylis was a gent’s hairdresser at 21 Kensal Road. Fred and Annie’s son Raymond was born at the family home in February 1937. Fred joined the London Fire Service in 1939 and after initially serving at North Kensington he moved to the Willesden Fire Station in Pound Lane.

Fred was in his last week of service and was leaving the brigade to become a bus conductor at the time of the Craven Park Road fire. Annie was pregnant and their daughter Doreen was born four months after he died. On 30 July 1946 Annie went to Buckingham Palace to meet King George VI who pinned the George Cross on nine-year-old Raymond’s chest. 

Today the medal is in the London Fire Brigade Museum after it was donated by Doreen. In August 2008 Frederick’s gave was renovated and formally rededicated by the Friends of Kensal Green Cemetery and the Civil Defence Association. 

Here is a short BBC video of the Willesden Fire Brigade at work in the 1990s:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bdt5ss2Z6VY


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