London Labour and the London Poor: Selection (Classics) (63 page)

The Deptfords go from Gracechurch-street, and over London-bridge, and some from Charing-cross, over Westminster-bridge, to Deptford.

The route of the Nelsons is from Charing-cross, over Westminster-bridge, and by the New and Old Kent-roads to Deptford, Greenwich, and Woolwich; some go from Gracechurch-street, over London-bridge.

The Shoreditches pursue the direction of Chelsea, Piccadilly, the Strand, &c. to Shoreditch, their starting-place being Battersea-bridge.

The Hackneys and Claptons run from Oxford-street, to Clapton-square.

Barber’s run from the Bank, and some from Oxford-street, to Clapton.

The Blackwalls run some from Sloane-street to the Docks, and the Bow and Stratfords from different parts of the West-end to their respective destinations.

I have enumerated these several conveyances from the information of persons connected with the trade, using the terms they used, which better distinguish the respective routes than the names lettered on the carriages,
which would but puzzle the reader, the principal appellation giving no intimation of the destination of the omnibus.

The routes above specified are pursued by a series of vehicles belonging to one company or to one firm, or one individual, the number of their vehicles varying from twelve to fifty. One omnibus, however, continues to run from the Bank to Finchley, and one from the Angel to Hampton Court.

The total number of omnibuses traversing the streets of London is about 3,000, paying duty including mileage, averaging 9
l
. per month each, or 324,000
l
. per annum. The number of conductors and drivers is about 7,000 (including a thousand ‘odd men’, – a term that will be explained hereafter), paying annually 5
s
. each for their licenses, or 1,750
l
. collectively. The receipts of each vehicle vary from 2
l
. to 4
l
per day. Estimating the whole 3,000 at 3
l
., it follows that the entire sum expended annually in omnibus hire by the people of London amounts to no less than 3,285,000
l
., which is more than 30
s
. a-head for every man, woman, and child, in the metropolis. The average journey as regards length of each omnibus is six miles, and that distance is in some cases travelled twelve times a day by each omnibus, or, as it is called, ‘six there and six back’. Some perform the journey only ten times a day (each omnibus), and some, but a minority, a less number of times. Now taking the average as between forty-five and fifty miles a day, travelled by each omnibus, and that I am assured on the best authority is within the mark, while sixty miles a day might exceed it, and computing the omnibuses running daily at 3,000, we find ‘a travel’, as it was worded to me, upwards of 140,000 miles a day, or a yearly travel of more than 50,000,000 of miles: an extent that almost defies a parallel among any distances popularly familiar. And that this estimate in no way exceeds the truth is proved by the sum annually paid to the Excise for ‘mileage’, which, as before stated, amounts on an average to 9
l
. each ‘bus’, per month, or, collectively, to 324,000
l
. per annum, and this as 1½
d
. per mile (the rate of duty charged) gives 51,840,000 miles as the distance travelled by the entire number of omnibuses every year.

On each of its journeys experienced persons have assured me an omnibus carries on the average fifteen persons. Nearly all are licensed to carry twenty-two (thirteen inside and nine out), and that number perhaps is sometimes exceeded, while fifteen is a fair computation; for as every omnibus has now the two fares, 3
d
. and 6
d
., or, as the busmen call them, ‘long uns and short uns’, there are two sets of passengers, and the number of fifteen through the whole distance on each journey of the omnibus is,
as I have said, a fair computation: for sometimes the vehicle is almost empty, as a set-off to its being crammed at other times. This computation shows the daily ‘travel’, reckoning ten journeys a day, of 450,000 passengers. Thus we might be led to believe that about one-fourth the entire population of the metropolis and its suburbs, men, women, and children, the inmates of hospitals, gaols, and workhouses, paupers, peers, and their families all Included, were daily travelling in omnibuses. But it must be borne in mind, that as most omnibus travellers use that convenient mode of conveyance at least twice a day, we may compute the number of individuals at 225,000, or, allowing three journeys as an average daily travel, at 150,000. Calculating the payment of each passenger at 4½
d
., and so allowing for the set-off of the ‘short uns’ to the ‘long uns’, we have a daily receipt for omnibus fares of 8,439
l
., a weekly receipt of 58,073
l
., and a yearly receipt of 2,903,650
l
.; which it will be seen is several thousands less than the former estimate: so that it may be safely assured, that at least three millions of money is annually expended on omnibus fares in London.

The extent of individual travel performed by some of the omnibus drivers is enormous. One man told me that he had driven his ‘bus’ seventy-two miles (twelve stages of six miles) every day for six years, with the exception of twelve miles less every second Sunday, so that this man had driven in six years 179,568 miles.

Origin of Omnibuses

[pp. 349–50] This vast extent of omnibus transit has been the growth of twenty years, as it was not until the 4th July, 1829, that Mr Shillibeer, now the proprietor of the patent mourning coaches, started the first omnibus. Some works of authority as books of reference, have represented that Mr Shillibeer’s first omnibus ran from Charing-cross to Greenwich, and that the charge for outside and inside places was the same. Such was not the case; the first omnibus, or rather, the first pair of those vehicles (for Mr Shillibeer started two), ran from the Bank to the Yorkshire Stingo. Neither could the charge out and in be the same, as there were no outside passengers. Mr Shillibeer was a naval officer, and in his youth stepped from a midshipman’s duties into the business of a coach-builder, he learning that business from the late Mr Hatchett, of Long Acre. Mr Shillibeer then established himself in Paris as a builder of English carriages, a demand for which had sprung up after the peace, when the current of English travel was directed strongly to France. In this speculation Mr Shillibeer was
eminently successful. He built carriages for Prince Polignac, and others of the most influential men under the dynasty of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and had a bazaar for the sale of his vehicles. He was thus occupied in Paris in 1819, when M. Lafitte first started the omnibuses which are now so common and so well managed in the French capital. Lafltte was the banker (afterwards the minister) of Louis Philippe, and the most active man in establishing the Messageries Royales. Five or six years after the omnibuses had been successfully introduced into Paris, Mr Shillibeer was employed by M. Lafltte to build two in a superior style. In executing this order, Mr Shillibeer thought that so comfortable and economical a mode of conveyance might be advantageously introduced in London. He accordingly disposed of his Parisian establishment, and came to London, and started his omnibus as I have narrated. In order that the introduction might have every chance of success, and have the full prestige of respectability, Mr Shillibeer brought over with him from Paris two youths, both the sons of British naval officers; and these young gentlemen were for a few weeks his ‘conductors’. They were smartly dressed in ‘blue cloth and togs’, to use the words of my informant, after the fashion of Lafitte’s conductors, each dress costing 5
l
. Their addressing any foreign passenger in French, and the French style of the affair, gave rise to an opinion that Mr Shillibeer was a Frenchman, and that the English were indebted to a foreigner for the improvement of their vehicular transit, whereas Mr Shillibeer had served in the British navy, and was born in Tottenham-court-road. His speculation was particularly and at once successful. His two vehicles carried each twenty-two, and were filled every journey. The form was that of the present omnibus, but larger and roomier, as the twenty-two were all accommodated inside, nobody being outside but the driver. Three horses yoked abreast were used to draw these carriages.

There were for many days, until the novelty wore off, crowds assembled to see the omnibuses start, and many ladies and gentlemen took their places in them to the Yorkshire Stingo, in order that they might have the pleasure of riding back again. The fare was one shilling for the whole and sixpence for half the distance, and each omnibus made twelve journeys to and fro every day. Thus Mr Shillibeer established a diversity of fares, regulated by distance; a regulation which was afterwards in a great measure abandoned by omnibus proprietors, and then re-established on our present threepenny and sixpenny payments, the ‘long uns’ and the ‘short uns’. Mr Shillibeer’s receipts were 100
l
. a-week. At first he provided a few books, chiefly magazines, for the perusal of his customers; but this
peripatetic library was discontinued, for the customers (I give the words of my informant) ‘boned the books’. When the young-gentlemen conductors retired from their posts, they were succeeded by persons hired by Mr Shillibeer, and liberally paid, who were attired in a sort of velvet livery. Many weeks had not elapsed before Mr Shillibeer found a falling off in his receipts, although he ascertained that there was no falling off in the public support of his omnibuses. He obtained information, however, that the persons in his employ robbed him of at least 20
l
. a week, retaining that sum out of the receipts of the two omnibuses, and that they had boasted of their cleverness and their lucrative situations at a champagne supper at the Yorkshire Stingo. This necessitated a change, which Mr Shillibeer effected, in his men, but without prosecuting the offenders, and still it seemed that defalcations continued. That they continued was soon shown, and in ‘a striking manner’, as I was told. As an experiment, Mr Shillibeer expended 300
l
. in the construction of a machine fitted to the steps of an omnibus which should record the number of passengers as they trod on a plate in entering and leaving the vehicle, arranged on a similar principle to the tell-tales in use on our toll-bridges. The inventor, Mr —, now of Woolwich, himself worked the omnibus containing it for a fortnight, and it supplied a correct index of the number of passengers: but at the fortnight’s end, one evening after dark, the inventor was hustled aside while waiting at the Yorkshire Stingo, and in a minute or two the machine was smashed by some unknown men with sledge-hammers. Mr Shillibeer then had recourse to the use of such clocks as were used in the French omnibuses as a check. It was publicly notified that it was the business of the conductor to move the hand of the clock a given distance when a passenger entered the vehicle, but this plan did not succeed. It is common in France for a passenger to inform the proprietor of any neglect on the part of his servant, but Mr Shillibeer never received any such intimation in London.

In the meantime Mr Shillibeer’s success continued, for he insured punctuality and civility; and the cheapness, cleanliness, and smartness of his omnibuses, were in most advantageous contrast with the high charges, dirt, dinginess, and rudeness of the drivers of many of the ‘short stages’. The short-stage proprietors were loud in their railings against what they were pleased to describe as a French innovation. In the course of from six to nine months Mr Shillibeer had twelve omnibuses at work. The new omnibuses ran from the Bank to Paddington, both by the route of Holborn and Oxford-street, as well as by Finsbury and the New-road. Mr Shillibeer feels convinced, that had he started fifty omnibuses instead
of two in the first instance, a fortune might have been realised. In 1831–2, his omnibuses became general in the great street thoroughfares; and as the short stages were run off the road, the proprietors started omnibuses in opposition to Mr Shillibeer. The first omnibuses, however, started after Mr Shillibeer’s were not in opposition. They were the Caledonians, and were the property of Mr Shillibeer’s brother-in-law. The third started, which were two-horse vehicles, were foolishly enough called ‘Les Dames Blanches’; but as the name gave rise to much low wit in
équivoques
it was abandoned. The original omnibuses were called ‘Shillibeers’ on the panels, from the name of their originator; and the name is still prevalent on those conveyances in New York, which affords us another proof that not in his own country is a benefactor honoured, until perhaps his death makes honour as little worth as an epitaph.

The opposition omnibuses, however, continued to increase as more and more short stages were abandoned; and one oppositionist called his omnibuses ‘Shillibeers’, so that the real and the sham Shillibeers were known in the streets. The opposition became fiercer. The ‘busses’, as they came to be called in a year or two, crossed each other and raced or drove their poles recklessly into the back of one another; and accidents and squabbles and loitering grew so frequent, and the time of the police magistrates was so much occupied with ‘omnibus business’, that in 1832 the matter was mentioned in Parliament as a nuisance requiring a remedy, and in 1833 a Bill was brought in by the Government and passed for the ‘Regulation of Omnibuses (as well as other conveyances) in and near the metropolis’. Two sessions after, Mr Alderman Wood brought in a bill for the better regulation of omnibuses, which was also passed, and one of the provisions of the bill was that the drivers and conductors of omnibuses should be licensed. The office of Registrar of Licenses was promised by a noble lord in office to Mr Shillibeer (as I am informed on good authority), but the appointment was given to the present Commissioner of the City Police, and the office next to the principal was offered to Mr Shillibeer, which that gentleman declined to accept. The reason assigned for not appointing him to the registrarship was that he was connected with omnibuses. At the beginning of 1834, Mr Shillibeer abandoned his metropolitan trade, and began running omnibuses from London to Greenwich and Woolwich, employing 20 carriages and 120 horses; but the increase of steamers and the opening of the Greenwich Railway in 1835 affected his trade so materially, that Mr Shillibeer fell into arrear with his payments to the Stamp Office, and seizures of his property and reseizures after money was paid, entailed such heavy
expenses, and such a hindrance to Mr Shillibeer’s business, that his failure ensued.