1913 Merryweather Fire Engine

Able to trace its origins back to 1692, Merryweather & Sons is the oldest name in the manufacture of fire-fighting equipment. It was in 1807 that a 14-year-old Yorkshire lad named Moses Merryweather was taken on as an apprentice by the old-established firm of fire engine makers Hadley, Simpkin & Lott, which had its roots in a maker of "fire squirts" founded in Long Acre some 25 years after the Great Fire of London: in 1836 Moses married the niece of company owner Henry Lott, and took over the company when Uncle Henry died. Always in the forefront of development, particularly after Moses' son James Compton Merryweather took control in 1877, the year after the firm had opened a new factory in Greenwich to cope with increasing demand, Merryweather & Sons became predominant in the manufacture of fire-fighting equipment.

While horse drawn steam fire engines had been the order of the day in Victorian times, Merryweather built their first self-propelled steam fire engine in 1899, and followed it with their first petrol-driven fire engine incorporating a pump, an entirely new type of machine, as early as 1904. Like all the early Merryweather motors, it had a chassis and engine built by Aster of Wembley, an offshoot of the French Aster company, whose engines were used by many early motor manufacturers.

This particularly Merryweather-Aster fire engine spent many years in the service of the brewers Bass, Ratcliff & Gretton of Burton-on-Trent, though that company declared that prior to the engine coming into their possession circa 1920-21, it was believed to have been used on a local estate connected with the Bass business.

Powered by a pair-cast four-cylinder L-head Aster engine displacing 8588cc, this impressive engine has a Braidwood-type body and a Merryweather "Hatfield" pump delivering 360 to 400 gallons per minute. It is equipped with a two-section double-row trussed John Morris "Ajax" ladder extending to 30 ft.

Descriptions & pictures by bonhams & en.wheelsage & flickr & dennisfire