Bristol Omnibus Company

The Bristol Omnibus Company is the former name of the dominant bus operator in Bristol, one of the oldest bus companies in the United Kingdom. The company once ran buses over a wide area of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and neighbouring counties. The name was in operational use until 1985. At various times in its history, the company was also known as Bristol Tramways (long after it had ceased to operate trams), Bristol Blues (even after its buses were painted green) or plain Bristol.

From 1887 to 1957, the legal name of the company was Bristol Tramways and Carriage Company Ltd. From 1999 to 2003 its legal name was First Bristol Buses Ltd, and since 2003 it has been First Somerset & Avon Ltd.

Early History

The Bristol Omnibus Company traces its origins to 1875, when the Bristol Tramways Company was formed by Sir George White to begin a horse-tram service from Upper Maudlin Street to Blackboy Hill. In 1887, the Bristol Tramways Company merged with the Bristol Cab Company to form a new company, Bristol Tramways & Carriage Company Ltd.

In 1887 the company began a horse-bus service to Clifton, and later started several more horse-bus services to complement the tramways.

In 1895 the company began to operate electric trams, and in 1906 introduced motor buses on the route between the city centre and Clifton. Rapid expansion of its bus services followed, in both Bristol and the surrounding country areas. The company opened branches at Bath in 1909, at Weston-super-Mare in 1910, at Cheltenham in 1912 and at Gloucester in 1913. In 1912 the company also bought the Clifton Rocks Railway, which closed in 1934. After the First World War more branches followed at Swindon (in 1921), Wells (in 1922) and Coleford (in 1924).

The company was not satisfied with the performance of the first buses it bought, and in 1908 began the manufacture of its own buses. The company soon began to sell its buses to other operators. For 75 years, Bristol buses were widely used in the United Kingdom, and were also exported to many countries.

In 1928 the company acquired control of another Bristol company, Greyhound Motors, which had started the first long distance coach service between Bristol and London in 1925. The company continued to operate its coach services under the Greyhound name until the 1970s.

In 1929 the White family sold its controlling interest to the Great Western Railway, but by 1932 the railway sold its interest to the Western National Omnibus Company, half owned by the GWR and half by the Tilling Group. In 1932 the railway transferred some of its bus services to the company, in the Swindon and Weston-super-Mare areas and the service between Cheltenham and Oxford.

In 1930 the company sold its taxicab operations, which it had run since 1887, first with horses and from 1910 with motors.

Outside Bristol the company had operated a mostly rural bus network, but in 1936 the company took over the city bus services in Gloucester and later that year took over the two companies operating trams and buses in the city of Bath.

In Bristol the Corporation had the power to purchase the Bristol tramways. The option was never exercised, but led in 1937 to the formation of Bristol Joint Services, a joint undertaking between the company and the Corporation which controlled Bristol's city buses (and initially also its trams) until 1978.

In 1941 the last of Bristol's trams ceased operation, and from then on the company only operated buses and coaches - although it kept the Bristol Tramways name for some years.

Nationalisation

After the Second World War the new Labour government took steps to nationalise much of the country's transport industry. As a result, in 1948 the Tilling Group sold its bus interests to the government, and Bristol Tramways became a state-owned company, under the control of the British Transport Commission.

The new regime resulted in some rationalisation of the company's area of operations. Two other companies, Red & White and Western National, both also now state-owned, ran buses in the Stroud area of Gloucestershire, and those operations were transferred to Bristol Tramways in 1950. The company was also given control of Cheltenham District Traction, which ran local buses in Cheltenham. In return, Bristol Tramways gave up its bus operations in the Forest of Dean.

The 1950s were the peak years of the company's operations. It ran over 1,200 buses in an area stretching from Hereford to Salisbury and from Oxford to Bridgwater. From 1950 (when the company acquired the independent Dundry Pioneer), until 1966 (when the Severn Bridge opened and Red & White started routes to Bristol), the company had a total monopoly of bus operations in Bristol, Bath, north Somerset and south Gloucestershire. Until 1955 the company continued to manufacture buses, but the manufacturing operations were then separated into another company, Bristol Commercial Vehicles Ltd. In 1957 Bristol Tramways finally recognised reality and changed its name to the Bristol Omnibus Company Ltd.

The 1960s and 1970s were years of declining bus usage, and the company struggled to make profits in the face of rising costs and falling revenues. Successive governments changed the structure of the state-owned bus sector: in 1962, the company was passed to the state-owned Transport Holding Company, then in 1969 to the state-owned National Bus Company. In 1970 the operations of Western National in the Trowbridge area were transferred to Bristol Omnibus.

Privatisation

In 1980 the new Thatcher government embarked on a programme of deregulation and privatisation of bus services. In 1983 the National Bus Company divided Bristol Omnibus into two companies, a new company (Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company) for the operations at Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stroud and Swindon, and the original company with two operating units, one branded Citybus in the city of Bristol and one branded Bristol Country Bus for the remaining services (in the Bristol country area, Bath, Somerset and western Wiltshire). In 1985 Bristol Country Bus was rebranded Badgerline, and in 1986 the Bristol Country operations were transferred to a new company, Badgerline Ltd, which was sold to its management later that year. [ [http://www.competition-commission.org.uk/rep_pub/reports/1989/fulltext/240c04.pdf Competition Commission report 1989] para 4.4] Also in 1986, the Cheltenham & Gloucester Omnibus Company was sold to its management, who in 1993 sold it to Stagecoach.

The stub of the original company, now confined to city services in and around Bristol, traded under the name 'City Line' from 1985. In September 1987 the company was sold to Midland Red West, another privatised bus company which had been bought by its management the year before.

ubsequent history

In April 1988 Midland Red West was itself sold to Badgerline. In 1995 the Badgerline group merged with Grampian Regional Transport to form First Bus, so that Bristol Omnibus Company became a subsidiary of First Bus, later FirstGroup.

The Bristol Omnibus name had fallen out of operational use for some time, and First Bus increasingly imposed its 'First' identity on its subsidiaries. Bristol Omnibus Company eventually changed its legal name to First Bristol Buses Ltd in 1999. The company changed its name again to First Somerset & Avon Ltd in 2003, and is now the First company operating in the Bristol country area, Bath and Somerset, but it remains the same legal entity incorporated on 1 October 1887 [ [http://wck2.companieshouse.gov.uk/ Companies House Webcheck] Company Number 25088] .

References

*Hulin, P (1974) "Bristol's Buses" Published by the author
*Curtis, C and Walker, M (2007) "Bristol Omnibus Services: The Green Years" Millstream Books