James Braidwood (firefighter) - New Memorial, 2008

New Memorial, 2008

On 5 September 2008, the James Braidwood memorial statue in Parliament Square, Edinburgh was unveiled by Professor Sir Timothy O'Shea, Principal of Edinburgh University. A fund had been established for a £75,000 memorial to Braidwood, to be created by the Glasgow sculptor, Kenneth Mackay, led by Dr Frank Rushbrook CBE, 93-year-old former Firemaster at Lothian & Borders Fire Brigade. The statue stands around the corner from the site of the original main fire station in the High Street. The bronze plaque below it reads:

Dr Rushbrook is also the benefactor of the Fire Laboratory that lies at the heart of the BRE Centre for Fire Safety Engineering, in the School of Engineering at The University of Edinburgh. His gift was motivated by a desire to promote education in applied fire science, and is routinely used for experimental classes on the undergraduate and taught postgraduate fire programmes at the university, together with Phd/post-doctoral research and also on occasion by fire service personnel. The laboratory was officially opened in 2003, and has since been expanded to two floors.