, Brazil. The Merryweathers worked with the engineer Edward Field to fit his design of a
vertical boiler onto a horse-drawn platform. They successfully applied it for use in their steam fire engine, thus improving water pressure and making easier to use once steam had been got up. It was reckoned that an engine could get up enough
pressure to
pump within ten minutes of a call out; the fire could be started before leaving the
fire station so there would be enough pressure by the time they arrived at the scene of the fire. Appliances were available in small sizes suitable for a country house, pumping about 100 gallons per minute, through to large
dockyard models, rated at 2000 gallons per minute. A common size, popular with Borough
fire brigades, was the double vertical boiler, that could pump between 250 and 450 gallons per minute. Merryweather also provided
hydrants and mains water supplies for highly vulnerable sites such as theatres, where getting a strong enough supply of water could be a problem.
Dock fires were a particular problem, as the hand-operated appliances of the time had neither the reach nor the power to tackle a blaze on a boat or their large
warehouses. After successfully demonstrating the improvement of the steam-powered devices fighting
petroleum fires at Antwerp docks, Merryweather's appliances, with their distinctive crews wearing
Merryweather helmets, soon became synonymous with
firefighting in Britain and abroad, alongside their rivals
Shand, Mason. Merryweather also built specialist
fireboats, such as a steam-powered fire-fighting barge for the port of Alexandria, designed to pump 1,200 gallons per minute to a height of 200 feet. In 1899, Merryweather produced the world's first successful self-propelled steam fire engine, the 'Fire King'; the first was dispatched to
Port Louis on
Mauritius. The first motorised fire engine in London was a Merryweather appliance delivered to the Finchley Fire Brigade in 1904. It was commemorated in April 1974 by the issue of a 3.5 pence Royal Mail postage stamp. The actual vehicle is preserved in the reserve collection of the
Science Museum at Wroughton in Wiltshire. Another notable survivor is the UK's oldest known aerodrome fire/crash tender, a 1937 Merryweather with a
Commer engine and chassis, now preserved in running order at
Brooklands Museum in Surrey. In the end of 1909 the
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation the municipality of Bombay acquired a
Hatfield Motor Vehicle Company based fire engine from Merryweather & Sons powered by a 50hp engine capable to achieve top speed of 30 miles per hour on solid rubber tires and had a capacity to deliver 450 gallons of water in a minute. With the fire tender, the governing body also acquired an escape tender which was also from Merryweather & Sons which featured a 50ft sliding carriage and was powered by a petrol engine. ==Tram engines==