Hastings County Borough Fire Brigade on the coast in East Sussex was formed in 1948 & lasted until the Fire Service Reforms Act of 1974 which disbanded all county borough fire brigades & put them under regional county control! Hastings was a small county borough with only 2 fire stations & covering an area of 12 square miles only, a busy seaside resort though!
The first cap badges of Hastings were unusual, basically because the brigade was issued BLANK home office stars & a number of borough police collar badges were supplied & put on the home office stars by the brigade themselves. Some of the collar badges had the lugs split & spread through the holes made in the star in outward directions, others had the lugs threaded through intact & slightly pinched together or cut very short!
This variation is manufactured by London Badge & Button Company who started production at the later part of the 1960’s, the fully pressed home office star variation & is the 2nd pattern 2mm flat, odd shaped shield. This pattern cap badge replaced the 1st bold shield pattern in 1958 & remained until 1974 when the brigade merged into East Sussex Fire Brigade, a total of 16 years in service.