Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay's Amazing Edwardian Zwicky Fire Engine
Swiss Engineer Jean Zwicky designed and hand-built this bleeding edge fire engine at the Tottenham Council works department in 1907. It cost, what was for the time an eye-watering £3,200.
Zwicky lived at 66 Chester Road in West Green.
More pictures below
Use the tag below to see more pictures of Harringay Fire Station.
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Comment by Hugh on October 26, 2017 at 17:14
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Here's the engine outside Harringay Fire Station:
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Comment by Dick Harris on October 27, 2017 at 0:10
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Thanks Hugh for all these fascinating pictures and stories. You seem to be on a real history roll.
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Comment by Geraldine on October 27, 2017 at 5:05
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Yes, thanks Hugh. Great pictures and stories. Wouldn't we all love one of those motor fire engines!
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Comment by Richard Woods on October 27, 2017 at 16:02
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Great stuff. According to the calculator that price would be £357,618.20 in today's terms. But I note that Avon and Somerset has just bought six new appliances for £2.4 million and the report adds: "Two of the engines cost £500,000 each" so maybe not so eye-watering after all? I would love to now but have not yet found what engine he used - there's room for a really big one; Rolls maybe?
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Comment by John McMullan on October 27, 2017 at 16:39
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Aren't London's new busses (which note: nobody else has bought) £300K each?
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Comment by Roy Abbs on January 9, 2018 at 14:13
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My Grandad joined the Tottenham Fire Brigade in 1921. He told me about a machine that he called a superpump, this must be it.
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A hand built 'bleeding edge' fire engine? Surely you mean leading edge fire engine !!
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Oh Hugh! That is so terribly modern and fabricated usage - cutting/bleeding? It depresses me when jargon usages like this get into mainstream dictionaries without any indication of their true provenance - or lack of!
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All vocabulary is fabricated in one way or another, Richard. The primary term from which it is derived, “cutting edge”, originated only as recently as the 19th century. Apparently, it originated in a reference to the forward edge of a propeller.
I have no problem with more recently minted terms, where they add real value. For me there is a clear distinction between cutting edge and bleeding edge. I think the Zwicki a fire engine really was bleeding, not cutting edge. That’s why I used the term.
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