Omnibuses and cabs

by Henry Charles Moore

The Company now possesses 455 omnibuses, or “cars,” as it prefers to call them, and a stud of 5206 horses, not including those used in the Jobbing Department.

THE LONDON ROAD CAR COMPANY’S FIRST OMNIBUS.

In the matter of outside accommodation for passengers, the improved omnibuses of the London Road Car Company were far in advance of those belonging to all other companies and proprietors. In place of the ordinary uncomfortable longitudinal seats, which so frequently led to squabbles between people sitting back to back, the London Road Car Company had the now common and popular garden seats. It was an innovation which met with unqualified approval from the public. To ladies it was a boon which they had never even expected, so accustomed were they to being relegated to the inside of omnibuses. To clamber to the top of the knife-board omnibuses was an impossibility with most of them, and the athletic few who did not find the task an arduous one were rewarded by being considered exceedingly unladylike. In fact, until the London Road Car Company started work, it was an unusual sight to see a female on the top of an omnibus. But now, when the weather is fine, few ladies ride inside if there be room for them on the roof. Truly, the fair sex should be very grateful to the London Road Car Company. Pickpockets, certainly, were deeply indebted to it, for the backs of the garden seats were open, and afforded them special facilities for the exploration of ladies’ pockets. After a time this defect was altered.

The popularity of the garden-seat omnibuses did not benefit the London Road Car Company alone, for other companies and proprietors, following its example, built all their new omnibuses with similar seats and staircases. Many of their knife-board omnibuses—too new to be discarded—were converted into the popular style of vehicle. Some of these converted omnibuses were, it must be confessed, a ghastly failure, for, although there was no fault to be found with the staircase, the arrangement on the roof was not only inconvenient, but highly dangerous. The gangway was raised, sometimes almost to a level with the outside rail, and passengers had to be very careful, in stepping down from it to take their seats, that they were not pitched head-first into the road. Fortunately, the worst specimens of these converted omnibuses have long since disappeared from the London streets.

It is surprising that garden-seat omnibuses were not introduced into London long before the Road Car Company was formed, as they had been in use in some Continental cities for thirty years.

At the outset of its career, the London Road Car Company adopted, as a distinctive sign, the diminutive Union Jack which flies at the fore of all its omnibuses. This flag was intended, also, to intimate to the public that the Company was floated with British capital, but, as very few Londoners were aware of the French origin of the London General Omnibus Company, the hint was not generally understood. Strangely enough, this appeal to the patriotism of Englishmen, has resulted in the Company receiving a large amount of support from foreigners visiting London. They imagine that the Union Jack is a sign that the omnibuses are State-subsidised vehicles, and, to avoid falling into the hands of the dreaded pirates—for the London pirates’ notoriety has reached the chief Continental cities—they will ride in no omnibus which does not carry a flag. Sometimes they stand for a long while looking for an omnibus with the Union Jack flying, to discover, eventually, that there are no Road Car omnibuses on that route. One French lady stood at Marble Arch for more than half an hour before a policeman could convince her that no “’bus with a flag” ran to what she called Crick-le-Wood.

A ROAD CAR COMPANY OMNIBUS, 1901.

The London Road Car Company’s flags have on several occasions been utilised for arousing the enthusiasm of London crowds. On Sunday, September 24, 1899, a few unpatriotic Englishmen desecrated the plinth of Nelson’s Column by expressing therefrom sympathy with Great Britain’s enemies. The reception accorded to them was, naturally, very hostile, and, while the excitement was at its height, a Road Car omnibus passed slowly through the crowd. A passenger, riding on top of the omnibus, no sooner discovered the meaning of the angry shouts, than he pulled the flagstaff from its socket, and waved aloft the little Union Jack. Loud cheers greeted his action, and the pro-Boer orators were taught speedily that Londoners had a healthy objection to their foolish, un-English ravings.