At the beginning of the nineteenth century, London was a compact city of around one million people, where most people walked and journeys on foot were the norm. The streets were narrow and congested and traffic was entirely horse-drawn or hauled by men. It was a city of extremes where the wealthy lived in the West End and used their own carriages, or they hired carriages or cabs, when they needed to travel. The poor meanwhile lived in overcrowded squalor close to where they worked, mostly in the centre. For them the notion of public transport did not exist.

The horse bus1829–1914Caroline Warhurst

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In the face of increasing competition, George Shillibeer himself went bankrupt. Unable to pay his debts, he was sent to debtors’ prison and spent the last years of his life as an undertaker, having adapted his bus for use as a hearse. He died aged 69 in 1866 and is buried in Chigwell in Essex.1999/20254

The city’s congested narrow streets provided a challenge for omnibus operators, but one inventor came up with a novel design to overcome this. Around 1839, Mr W B Adams constructed a vehicle in two parts, joined in the middle by a flexible leather passage to enable it to turn more easily – the original bendy bus.4 Sadly it did not become popular and only had a short career.2006/6166

The Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park brought a dramatic increase in the number of visitors to London and bus operators were quick to seize the chance to increase the number of passengers carried up to 25, by installing seats on the roof. The exhibition lasted six months and was visited by more than six million people. It was the biggest single tourist attraction London had ever seen. More seats per vehicle led to cheaper fares and the omnibus became even more popular as a form of transport. 2004/18112

After Shillibeer’s large Omnibus, smaller buses came into use carrying 12 passengers in a small box-shaped coach pulled by two horses. An ‘improved omnibus’ with a raised roof featured in the Illustrated London News 1 May 1847. A larger doorway made it easier for people to board the bus. As competition grew, operators introduced vehicles with lighter frames, like the ‘knifeboard’ horse bus pictured. It acquired this name because of the seating arrangement on top where passengers, sitting back to back on the long seat, resembled the knifeboards commonly seen in Victorian kitchens. This LGOC horse bus, with the conductor perched on his platform at the back, is in service in 1859 between Putney Bridge and Piccadilly. The knifeboard, London’s first double deck bus, remained the standard vehicle during the 1860s and 70s, until replaced by the ‘Garden Seat’ type in the 1880s.2004/10874

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A new female conductor tries out her recently-acquired skills on a group of ‘passengers’ on top of a bus in the yard at the Milmans Street training school. George Savidge was the Conductors’ Lecturer from 1912 and taught at Milmans Street, which opened in 1913. He said in 1937, ‘Wearing the uniform week in and week out got too monotonous for some of them. One effected a change by cutting off the tunic collar, making a V-shaped front and trimming the edges with pink chiffon; another tilted up one side of her broad brimmed hat and sewed a bunch of red artificial roses to the side; whilst yet another cut a hole through the side of her hat and attached an Australian soldier’s cockade.’1998/91203

Remarkably, after the First World War 234 buses were returned to the LGOC by the War Department and over forty were put back into service. Here a B type chassis is being repaired after being brought back from the Western Front in 1919.1998/36587

Post-war bus shortages meant that vehicles which would otherwise have been considered substandard, were pressed into use to maintain services in the capital. From May 1919 some returned B type chassis were fitted with very basic wooden ‘lorry-bus’ bodies, and operated as ‘Traffic Emergency Vehicles’ in khaki livery, with a fixed wooden staircase built onto the rear tailgate. They were unpopular and, licensed to carry just 27 people with no standing allowed, operated at a loss. This lorry-bus is picking up passengers at Victoria station in 1919.1998/85345

Many local war memorials for fallen comrades were created at local garages and offices. Here, at the LGOC’s Willesden Garage a memorial to the 55 employees who were killed during the war - including one lost during a Zeppelin raid - is being dedicated in November 1920.1998/43613

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Bus Stop Records was formed in 1972 by pop hitmakers Mitch Murray and Peter Callender as an outlet for their songs. Their biggest hit was Billy Don’t Be A Hero, a number one for Paper Lace in 1974.1998/3553

Released in 1979, and reaching number 23 in the charts, Boogie Bus was one of the first generation of dance compilation albums programmed and segued by professional DJs. The design mimics the front of a red bus, but without huge attention to detail. The ‘route number’ gives the number of tracks. Simon Murphy collection

London Transport used a strangely deadpan reference to the Wham! hit Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go to promote one day bus passes in 1986. 1987/54/1

Production design researchers visited the London Transport Museum collections in 2003, while investigating buses that could be used as the basis for the purple triple deck Knight Bus first seen in the film Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban the following year. The final bus is an amalgamation of two RT type buses.Inspired Adornations

‘The Busman’s Prayer’ had been circulating in the bus workforce in various versions for many years. The most popular version known today is Ian Dury’s rendition, performed with his band the Blockheads. Dury may have learned the poem from his father, a bus driver, remembered in the song My Old Man.

Our father, who art in Hendon.

Harrow Road be thy name.

Thy Kingston come thy Wimbledon, in

Erith as it is in Hendon.

Give us this day our Berkhamstead and

forgive us our Westminsters, as we forgive

those who Westminster against us

For thine is the Kingston, the Purley and

the Crawley. For Iver and Iver, Crouch End.

Backpackers and tourists decorated jackets and bags with sew-on patches like this one in the 1970s. While other cities might be represented by a coat of arms or the silhouette of an iconic building, this ‘London’ patch deftly illustrates the equation of the city and its big red bus, in this case a crudely executed Routemaster. David Lawrence collection

Chris Gabrin

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Photo montage poster by Maurice Beck promoting the LGOC’s impressive ‘record of service’ for 1931. During the year its 4,754 buses had carried nearly 700m passengers over 185m route miles. The main images feature a bus driver and conductor, the uniformed staff most obvious to passengers, while the others show work behind the scenes keeping London’s buses on the move. At a time of economic depression the company was keen to stress that it was a major employer as well as a service provider, with more than 32,000 staff. 1983/4/3303

Special bus services were laid on for the annual Derby Stakes at Epsom, running from Morden Tube station. A small fleet of old open-toppers was maintained by the LGOC for private hire. These buses were in particular demand on Derby Day as they could combine party transport to Epsom Downs with a grandstand view of the race and a private picnic enclosure on the top deck. 1998/54722

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Cover of a London Transport ‘Pleasure Outings’ booklet showing the huge chalk lion cut into the Chiltern downs near Dunstable in 1933. The lion marks the location of Whipsnade, the new ‘country branch’ of London Zoo, which had opened nearby. At a time when few people owned a car, the green country bus or coach was the only way that most Londoners could get to Whipsnade, which was right at the northern edge of the LPTB area in Bedfordshire. It was the first limited stop service by Green Line coach, direct from Baker Street in 1932.1995/625

Detail from a folding Green Line brochure designed by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy in 1937. The express coach services had expanded rapidly since 1930 and are promoted here with London Transport’s usual sophisticated style. The leaflet has gushing diary notes by ‘Irene Glen’, a fashionable Home Counties lady who enthuses about going by comfortable, luxury coach to various places in town on shopping, lunch and theatre trips. Her name is of course an anagram of Green Line.Oliver Green collection

Poster advertising London Transport guided coach tours, 1937. The coach shown is a Q type, an ingenious Chiswick design with the engine re-positioned from the front to the off-side of the vehicle behind the driver. There were single deck bus and coach variants of this innovative vehicle and even five experimental double-deckers with the entrance at the front, which looked very much like modern buses built since the 1960s.1983/4/4838

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