JOHN MORRIS & SONS LTD. Motor Fire Engines and Escapes. Manchester: John Morris & Sons, Ltd. [1922].
4to. Original brown card wrapper, red lettering and pasted-on illustrations of fire engine to front; pp. 72, illustrated throughout in b&w; with letter to a Mr Maurice Butler on John Morris & Sons headed notepaper tipped in to front; Butler's bookplate to inside of wrapper and signature to page 2 (blank), very good.
A copy of the company's 1922 catalogue of fire engines. John Morris & Sons, based at Salford Fire Engine Works, was founded in 1877 by the inventor of the instantaneous coupling, a hose connection device that is still used in by fire brigades in Britain and other Commonwealth nations. It continued to build fire engines until 1970, when it was bought by the German company Siebe Gorman. It is now a dormant company under the umbrella Schneider Electric Limited.
This very attractive catalogue, illustrated throughout with some quite dramatic photographs of firehoses in action and precarious-looking climbing equipment alongside the splendid vehicles, is extremely rare. We have not found any examples in libraries or in auction records.
#2118322