Hefin Jones’
SHAND MASON 
STEAM FIRE ENGINE

Hefin Jones took his Shand Mason back to Doncaster with some mods suggested by the judges a year earlier. These were: replacing cylinder and steam chest bolts, fitting two new valves on the cylinder oil wells, and fitting a tap to a tank feed pipe.

The steam engine transformed fire fighting in the first half of the 19th century. In 1855 Shand Mason first applied steam power to a floating fire engine on the River Thames. It then turned to road engines. Its most successful model, the double vertical, was introduced in 1889 and was an immediate success in Germany and France, before seeing popular use at home. Local authorities were made responsible for fire fighting, including Merionethshire which was the inspiration for this model.

The Shand Mason has proven a popular model to the Edgar T Westbury design from the 1960s for which drawings in 1:6 scale and castings are readily available. It was re-visited in 2009 by Guenter Kallies.