Did you know that the word we use for a spare wheel, stepney, comes from Stepney Street in Llanelli, Wales, where the first spare wheels were manufactured. It was invented in 1904 by two brothers, Tom and Walter Davies who were ironmongers by profession and who later branched out into assembling bicycles and then into hiring out cars.
The Stepney Spare Wheel consisted of a pre-inflated tyre mounted on a spoke-less iron wheel rim which could be clamped onto a deflated tyre (see picture).
India is one of the very few countries where the word stepney is still used.
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