Photo, 1911 Black & White, By The Daily Mirror, Female Taxi Bus Driver

  • $29.99 CAD


Photograph, 1911, Taken By The Daily Mirror Photographer, Black and White, Subject, Female Kate Barton Taxi Bus Driver, and Her Daughter as Passenger. 

 

Getting a Bus in the city is not every Londoner's favourite thing to do.

They are hardly ever on time, you can usually walk faster, and sometimes the driver shuts the door in your face. But our transport system today is much better than in the past.

In the early 1800s, the rich would get a water taxi or Hackney Cab, while everyone else had to slum it and walk.

But in 1829 everything changed when George Shillibeer started a new service he called the Omnibus. It was a horse-drawn carriage seating 22 people, which ran, to a timetable, had a fixed route, fixed fares and a conductor to help passengers.

And so the bus was born.

In the 190 years city buses have been running, they have changed quite a bit. They only sometimes looked like the iconic double-deckers that we know today.

Until 1911, buses were a lot smaller and pulled along the city's streets by horses. In 1911, the new B-Type Bus was the world's first mass-produced motorized Bus. In 1914, buses were also painted khaki and taken to the Western Front during the First World War.

In the early days of London’s public transport women did not have equal rights with men. In the nineteenth century, women could not be awarded degrees, vote in parliamentary elections, or control their own money once they were married. Opportunities for work were limited and low-paid. Women worked in domestic service, shops, laundries, and factories, in clerical roles and in the home. They were barred from many positions, including most transport roles.  

When men joined the armed forces, in the First World War, it caused vast shortages of transport workers. The competing firms running railways and buses in London began hiring women to fill these vacancies.  

Maida Vale was the first station to be staffed entirely, by, women when it opened on 6 June 1915, with a team of eight women undertaking every single duty. 

On 1 November 1915, the first woman, and conductor, Mrs G Duncan, began work on a Thomas Tilling route number 37 bus. The London General Omnibus Company (LGOC) followed in 1916 and, went on to employ, over 4,600 women. 

If you'd like to see them up close, the London Transport Museum in Covent Garden has many of the buses (and more). 

 Black and white picture of a group of B-Type Buses parked.

Item Code - MEMSOU13C231ALDZ2

Width: 8 3/8" Height: 6 5/8'' Depth: 1/32" Item Weight: 6 g Item with Packaging 7.5 g


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