Historical Fiction . Sparks in Time . Writing

Sparks in Time Episode 2: The Stepney Spare

On April 27, 2020 by admin

The Pickle: How to Change a Flat in 1914

If you’re anything like me, you probably went pretty much your whole life without ever hearing the term Stepney spare. My path crossed with the Stepney in 2017, when I was writing a suspense-filled scene involving an early 20th century vehicle. I realized that I knew nothing about the first generation of automobiles. And so began my research journey, which led me ultimately to…the Stepney spare wheel.

As it happened, two of my characters were happily on their way to create mischief when the unexpected hit: a 1914-version of a flat tire. But, while I know enough about flat tire repairs in modern times, I had no idea what this looked like in 1914. Were they common? Were they fixable on-the-go? Was this a surmountable challenge for my characters?

As it turns out, yes…to all of the above. If you were a driver in 1914, you could expect your automobile to get more than a few flats. After all, the bumpy and narrow streets that you probably shared with horses and carts, pedestrians, had more than a few ruts and potholes. And this was if you lived in a city. For country-dwellers, road trip were even more precarious. Enter the Stepney.

The Solution: The Stepney Spare Wheel

Thomas Morris Davis invented the Stepney spare wheel in 1904, and by 1914 (when my characters encounter their flat), the Stepney was well-established. The Stepney was a spokeless wheel rim fitted with a pre-inflated tire. In the early 1900s, automobiles did not come with a spare, so if you experienced a flat you were pretty much stuck. By 1909, the Stepney Spare Motors advertised that their Stepney spares could be fit to any London taxi—so, they were certainly a common commodity for early London drivers.

The Stepney had short-lived utility, but just a touch of lasting fame. By 1922, custom spare tires were a regular feature with new automobiles, so Stepneys were no longer required as a separate purchase. However, the name “Stepney” (or some derivative) is still used for spares in India, Bangladesh, Malta and Brazil.

On Writing

It can be a bit of a challenge to make a historical scene feel authentic, particularly when you are describing a technology or tool that you’ve never used before. This was definitely the case with the Stepney. From my research, I understood how it worked. However, imagining how it would be implemented took some more in-depth thinking. First, how strong would you need to be to be able to install one? Was it something that the average person could do? Second, what other tools would be needed? These were concepts I had to write into the scenes to make the Stepney seem authentic. But the real challenge was to write in these details without sounding like a “how to” manual.

Tips and Techniques

Perhaps more importantly, thinking about the Stepney led me to consider how I was incorporating the automobile into my writing in general. What was the experience of driving an early automobile like? How much space was there inside? And the little details that would matter to someone who had never been in a vehicle before, like how did the door handle mechanisms work? All of these details help to bring readers into the experience.

For me, I focused on one specific aspect of the experience at a time. For one scene, I created some tension by requiring a character to hide in an automobile. The problem was, while she had seen automobiles all her life, she had never been in one. Therefore, the simple act of opening a door was a challenge—made all the more stressful because she was trying to quickly slip into the car to hide. Having her work through the problem of how to work the door mechanism was my way of letting the reader understand a little bit about the experience of getting in a vehicle for the first time.

In another scene, I have my characters installing a Stepney spare on a vehicle with a flat. What makes this specifically difficult is that one of the characters has a broken arm. This allowed me to show how a Stepney was used as the characters quickly worked to make the repair…so they could make a proper getaway, of course.

Envisioning what it might have been like to climb into or repair early automobiles helped to create vivid and relatable experiences for readers, while being true to the historical period.

Researching the Stepney Spare

Since this particular scene took place in Ireland, I needed to make sure that the Stepney had made it to Ireland by 1914. According to Stepney advertisements from 1907, retailers existed in London, Edinburgh and…Dublin. This was a bit of a relief, since sometimes these little research rabbit holes turn up facts that are inconvenient to the storyline. And sometimes, they turn up discrepancies where you may need to rewrite a scene or in some cases, start from square one.

Graces’s Guide to British Industrial History was a great reference for this research, since it includes historical documents about the Stepney, inventor (Thomas Morris Davies), and the history of the company (Stepney Works).

I also found some good information from BBC, which in conjunction with the British Museum, ran a series called “A History of the World“, which includes an article on the Stepney spare wheel.

Recommended Reading

Boy: Tales of Childhood, by Roald Dahl. Now, you may think this is an odd choice. To be clear, Roald Dahl’s autobiography has nothing to do with this topic…not exactly. However, there is a lovely and vivid scene where Dahl describes his first ride in an automobile as a child. At the time, automobiles were new and novel and his description of this experience always stuck in my mind. I know it played into how I described my characters riding in early automobiles. Plus, it’s a great read by a beloved author. Highly recommend!

Landmarks of Interest

Stepney Street, Llanelli, South Wales. This is the site of Thomas Morris Davies’s Ironmongers business in 1904, where he developed the Stepney Spare. If you are interested in seeing the Stepney firsthand, the Parc Howard Museum, also in Llanelli, has an exhibit that features the equipment.

102 Grafton Street, Dublin. If you found yourself in Dublin in 1914 and needed to purchase a Stepney spare for your automobile, your best bet was probably Argyllis Ireland Ltd, located at 102 Grafton Street (which would have been pretty prime real estate, even in the early 20th Century). Grafton Street has been a part of pop culture throughout the 20th century and remains a hub of commercial activity in Dublin today. There are plenty of reasons to pay this historic street a visit!

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