London Taxis – a Full History
by Bill Munro
Copyright © Bill Munro 2011
Cover illustrations © Bill Munro
Smashwords Edition
The moral right of the author has been asserted
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Contents
About the Author
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Introduction, and the Term, ‘Black Cab’
Chapter 1 The Bersey
Chapter 2 The First Motors
Chapter 3 The Motor Cab comes of Age
Chapter 4 Great War, Turbulent Peace
Chapter 5 The 1930s
Chapter 6 The Second World War
Chapter 7 Steel Bodies and Diesel Engines
Chapter 8 Towards Modernity
Chapter 9 Uncertainty, Upheaval and Innovation
Chapter 10 Monopoly by Default
Chapter 11 A Newcomer, and the Beginnings of London Taxis International
Chapter 12 Towards Wider Markets
Chapter 13 The New Millennium
Chapter 14 Today and Tomorrow
Appendix 1 The Public Carriage Office
Appendix 2 Taximeters
Appendix 3 Licence Plates and Stencils
Appendix 4 Technical Specifications
Appendix 5 Production Figures
Appendix 6 Motor Cabs Licensed, 1903 - 1991
About the Author
Bill Munro is a writer, a London taxi driver and an historian of the London taxi and the London cab trade. Previous titles by him include The London Taxi, Shire, 2009, in co-operation with Nick Georgano) A Century of London Taxis (Crowood, 2005) ‘The Centurion Tank (Crowood, 2005)
He runs his own publishing company, Earlswood Press, through which he has published his own books in print form. These include Taxi Jubilee – Fifty Years of the Austin FX4 London Taxi and London Taxis – a Full History. He has also published An Italian Home – Settling by Lake Como by Paul Wright, which is available both as a print edition and as an ebook, published on Smashwords.
Find out more about Bill and Earlswood Press at www.billmunro.co.uk
Acknowledgements
All historians owe a debt to those who researched their chosen subject before them and the author is no exception. Following on from Anthony Armstrong’s ‘Taxi’, published in 1930, two authoritative books on the subject of London taxicabs were Nick Georgano’s ‘A History of the London Taxicab’ (David & Charles, 1972) and Philip Warren and Malcolm Linskey’s ‘Taxicabs: a Photographic History’. (Almark, 1976) These latter works set benchmarks in the historians’ knowledge of the subject. Philip Warren’s ‘The History of the London Cab Trade’ (Taxi Trade Promotions Ltd., 1995) is a book on the politics of the trade rather than its vehicles but has proved a valuable volume in respect of this book, as has his later, ‘The History of the Knowledge of London’ (London Publishing Company, 2003). Malcolm Bobbitt’s ‘Taxi, the Story of the ‘London’ cab’, (Veloce, 1998) provided useful information on Citroën cabs, whilst ‘75 Years: The History of the London General Cab Company’, (London Cab Company, 1975) provided valuable information about that organisation and the trade in general. John R. Hume and Michael S. Moss’s ‘Beardmore- A History of a Scottish Industrial Giant,’ (Heinemann, 1976) and Ken Hurst’s ‘William Beardmore: “Transport is the Thing”’ (National Museums of Scotland, 2004) have both given a fascinating insight into the background of the Beardmore story. All these books provided an invaluable starting point for my research. Many documents stored in the National Archive (formerly the Public Records Office) have become available since the publication of the aforementioned books. Also there are many individuals who have made contributions, large and small to the content of this book, and the author is extremely grateful for their help. They are:
From the car clubs:
Robin Barraclough, Tony Beadle, Malcolm Jeal, Bryan K. Goodman and Perry Zavitz of the Society of Automotive Historians; Philip Hall of the Rolls-Royce Enthusiasts Club; Clive Loveless, Mal Smith, James Strugnell, Graham Waite, Keith White and Eddie Zetlein of the London Vintage Taxi Association; John Gray of the Sunbeam-Talbot-Darracq Register and Irving Lomon of the Asquith Association.
The independent enthusiasts:
Alan Broughton; Graham Hill; Melvyn Hiscock; Peter Kimberley; Ian MacLean; Norman Painting; Chris Pearce; Derek Pearce; Nic Portway; Mike Reid; Owen Woodliffe and R. J Wyatt.
From the cab trade and industry:
Peter Birch; Peter Bentley of the Public Carriage Office; Peter Da Costa of KPM (UK) Plc; Geoff Chater and Bob Parsons of CMAK (UK) Ltd. Roy Ellis, former Principal of the Public Carriage Office; Steven Ferris of Metrocab (UK) Ltd; David Day and Stephen Tillyer, formerly of Metro Sales and Service; Roy Perkins and the late Ken Jaeger of Beardmore Motors; Mal Smith, founder of Vintage Taxi Spares; Roger Ward and the late Geoff Trotter, MBE from the London General Cab Company; Jamie Borwick, Matthew Cheyne, Terry Fryer, Maria Holmes, Peter James, Grant Lockhart, the late Bill Lucas, Ed Osmond, Andrew Overton, Updesh Ramnath, Peter Shillcock, Jevon Thorpe, Barry Widdowson and the late Peter Wildgoose, variously from LTI, MBH Plc, Mann and Overton and Carbodies.
And last, but by no means least, to my wife, Karen, for just about everything, from her practical help to her patience and understanding and, above all, her total support.
Foreword
Published in 2005, ‘A Century of London Taxis’ was presented as ‘the most comprehensive and analytical study of the topic yet published’. Six years on, there have been three significant events in the story of the London taxi and the capital’s cab trade in general that have made a new edition desirable. The first event was the result of the appeal over the Conditions of Fitness, released too late for ‘Century’s’ deadline. The second was the arrival of a new cab, the Mercedes-Benz Vito. Based on a van body, this has broken the mould of the traditional look of the London cab. For three periods over the last sixty years, Mann and Overton had the London market to themselves and had begun to make major inroads into provincial markets they could once never feasibly consider entering. When faced with challenges in those provincial markets by van-based cabs they promoted their vehicles’ instant recognisability as a major selling point.
Now, in London the Vito is actively challenging that, and it has proved highly successful in the short time it has been on the market, with stories reported of passengers actively seeking Vito cabs over LTI ones.
The third event is the decision by London Taxis International to build a factory in Shanghai, China, in order to produce taxis at a far lower price for the world market than could be achieved in Coventry. This manifested itself in late 2010 with the introduction of two models of the TXII, assembled in the Coventry factory that were significantly cheaper than could be made entirely from UK-made components.
As well as bringing the story up to date, and adding some new material and photographs, this new book goes further back in time than ‘Century’, covering London’s first horseless cab, the electric Bersey. It also includes some newly discovered material and photographs and puts right some errors and omissions, some of which only came to light some time after the original was published.
Introduction
The London taxicab is famous the world over, and it is unique. No other city lays down such specific rules for its taxicabs, nor controls them so stringently. For over a hundred years, motor cabs have worked the streets of London and for three and a half centuries before their introduction, their horse-drawn predecessors carried out the same job.
Astonishingly, there have nearly one hundred different models of cab licensed for London, but now there are just two, and this situation was not a recent one, for within a few short years of the introduction of the rules, the Conditions of Fitness, the motor industry boomed, leaving the rules way behind and making the London taxi market a very specialist one. So specialised, that on three occasions in the history of the London cab trade, there was just one make available to be bought new, and on two occasions, none at all.
The story of the London taxi has been dominated by two groups; dynasties if you will. By far the most successful has been Mann and Overton. They were eventually subsumed by the amalgam of its suppliers, Carbodies Ltd. of Coventry who had acquired the rights to the Austin cab that they had made for decades and who became London Taxis International.
The second group was more diverse, and less successful, but nevertheless managed to make its mark. It started around 1909 when Francis M. Luther, the concessionaire for Austro-Daimler cars in Britain assisted with the financing of W & G du Cros’ fleet of Napier cabs. When supplies of the Napier dried up, Luther persuaded his friend William Beardmore to make taxicabs for him.
In the 1960s, when Beardmore Motors finally ceased trading, the cause was taken up by transport manufacturing giant Metro-Cammell-Weymann, who had built the last Beardmore cabs and went on to design their own, the Metrocab. Alongside all of these, many other makers came and went, with varying degrees of success.
This story comes right up to date, with the latest Mercedes-Benz Vito, a model that, whilst complying with all the rules, has signalled a major change in how we perceive the London taxi in the future.
The Term, ‘Black Cab’
Nowhere in this book will you see the term ‘black cab’ used to describe the London taxi. ‘Why should this be,’ you might ask, ‘when everybody calls them that?’ Firstly, it is not what the licensing authority, Transport for London calls them and it was not what TfL’s predecessor, the Public Carriage Office called them. And a good many of London’s taxis are NOT black!
The name originated some time around 1980, or perhaps before, in the minicab business. Known in law as private hire, the minicab business had usurped the term ‘cab’ to describe their vehicles, despite it becoming an offence to advertise themselves as such, and public didn’t particularly care that it was. Those minicab drivers who wanted to ‘legitimise’ themselves by undergoing The Knowledge of London to become licensed taxi drivers and could pass the criminal record and health checks (by no means all of them!) demanded by the Public Carriage Office, called this ‘doing their black cab’. As they moved across, they brought the term with them. Unfortunately, it stuck.
Chapter 1 The Bersey
On August 13, 1897 an inspecting officer at the Public Carriage Office in New Scotland Yard stencilled a mark on the back of a bright yellow and black brougham-type cab. The stencil bore the initials of the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis and the number of persons that the cab was licensed to carry. But this cab was different from the ‘growlers’, the slow, four-wheeled horse cabs that served the railway stations and carried old ladies at a dignified pace. It was very different, too from the hansom cabs, the ‘gondolas of London’ that these inspectors had been licensing for the past half-century. There was no horse between the shafts: in fact, there were no shafts for a horse at all, because it was powered by electricity.
It was the first of an initial number - reports vary from 12 to 18 - that the London Electric Cab Company Ltd. put on the streets of London. They were named Berseys, after the company's general manager and the cab's designer, the electrical engineer Walter C. Bersey. Cabs like the Bersey, or indeed any mechanically propelled vehicles available for public or private hire might have appeared on London's streets earlier than 1897. There was the technology: in Germany, Gottleib Daimler was granted patents for a lightweight petrol engine, suitable for use in a carriage or a boat as far back as 1883, and in 1886 placed such an engine in a four-wheeled carriage. In 1896 his Daimler Taximeter cabs were plying for hire in Stuttgart, a petrol-powered Benz automobildroschke operated in Berlin and electric cabs were operating in Paris and Chicago. What had prevented the progress of the motor cab in Britain was the same thing that was stifling the development of the road-going horseless carriage in general, and that was the Locomotives Act of 1865, the so-called ‘Red Flag Act’. This reduced the maximum speed of a mechanically propelled carriage to two miles per hour and demanded that it be preceded by a man on foot, carrying a red flag to warn of its approach. Such an Act, brought about by powerful vested interests in the railways was an absurdity to a number of men, who knew that the Act’s repeal would allow the launch of the horseless carriage in Britain.
The British rights to the Daimler patents were acquired in 1890 by Frederick Simms, who built engines to Daimler’s design. He first put them to use in boats, mostly on the River Thames, but in 1893 he formed the Daimler Motor Syndicate out of his small engineering firm with the intention of building motorised carriages like Daimler’s. Simms’ company was acquired in by Harry Lawson, an entrepreneur whose reputation had led to his contemporaries questioning whether he was a charlatan or a visionary. Whatever he was, his intention was to make money out of an industry that was barely in its infancy. In early 1896, as soon as he had acquired Simms’ company, Lawson formed the Daimler Motor Company Ltd. and he bought a former cotton mill in Coventry, which he renamed the Motor Mills. He also acquired rights to other patents, granted to the French companies of De Dion-Bouton and Léon Bollée.
In 1896 the Locomotive Act of 1865 was repealed, and from November 14 1896 motor cars, (and that expression had yet to come into popular usage; they were more often referred to as ‘autocars’) could be driven on public roads without the encumbrance of a man with the red flag. Members of the Royal Automobile Club celebrated the event by organising a drive from London to Brighton. This event is still commemorated annually by the Emancipation Run, held on the first Sunday in November.
For all the freedom the repeal of the Red Flag Act gave to motor car users, the machines were very expensive and unreliable and the public at large were extremely sceptical of, if not downright hostile to them. Victorian Britain depended overwhelmingly on the horse for road transport and there was a huge infrastructure supporting it: breeders, dealers, carriage makers, farriers, and many more who believed their livelihoods would vanish if the motor car were to be a success. Fear of the unreliability of these pioneer machines was well-founded, and the high cost of them was prohibitive, But there was one way of proving the motor vehicle's worth, of testing it and improving its reliability and in time reducing the cost by ensuring a return on the investment needed in building them, and that was to put it to work. And there was one sure way of giving the public a chance to experience travelling in a motor car and have them pay for the privilege into the bargain, and that was to use them as cabs.
A group of the most influential supporters of the ‘autocar’ then put together a proposal for the Public Carriage Office that they should operate a petrol-powered cab, similar to the Benz and the Daimler cabs. The group included H. R. Paterson of the carriers Carter Paterson, the Honourable Reginald Brougham, after whose immediate forbear the brougham style of carriage was named, J. H. Mace, a director of Harry Lawson's British Daimler Company, the coachbuilder H. J. Mulliner and the Honourable Evelyn Ellis, one of the men prominent in securing the repeal of the ‘red flag act’. They wanted to use a Daimler internal combustion engine in the new cab, which they hoped would greatly enhance the reputation of The Motor Mills, the Daimler name in Britain and the cause of the autocar in general.
But the Public Carriage Office had other ideas. They, as a branch of the Metropolitan Police had taken responsibility for the licensing of London’s cabs in 1843 and, in response to continued public complaints about the conduct of cabmen they had introduced driver licensing in the same year, but 1896 they introduced a driving test for cabmen. Doubtless they felt it right that a driver of a horseless cab should not be exempt from such a test, but they were honest enough to point out that they had no expertise in assessing whether a man was capable of driving a motor car. Indeed, they had no idea of how the machines worked or of their capabilities, or otherwise on the road. However, they felt that an electric vehicle was far simpler to drive. It only needed a driver to throw a switch and the cab was in motion as promptly as if the cabman had picked up the reins and given a command to his horse, and it could be brought to a stop simply by switching off the power and applying the brake. Everything else – the judgement of pace, distance, vehicle width and general traffic sense would be the same as if the cabman were driving a horse, so an electric cab it would be. The London Electric Cab Company naturally provided training for the drivers in ‘the management of the switches’, which they reckoned would take an intelligent man just two days to master, and sent him off the Scotland Yard for a driving test. Needless to say, the man would have already held a cab driver’s licence, so there would have been no need for him to undergo the topographical test, The Knowledge of London, or have any other checks on his character.
The cabs’ designer, Walter C. Bersey had experimented with electric traction and in 1894 built an electric van and run it in the City of London. He entered an electric carriage of his own design in the Emancipation Run, but its limited, 60-mile range meant that it had to be transported to Brighton by train. Bersey was well aware of the limitations of battery vehicles, and felt that they were best used in reasonably close proximity to their charging station. Thus Bersey was the right man with the right experience to head up the new company.
The cabs were built by The Great Horseless Carriage Company and were powered by 3½hp Lundell-type motors, which are constructed in a similar way to modern car alternators. The coachwork was of the brougham type, built by H. J. Mulliner. The massive batteries gave enough power for a top speed of 9mph, which is the equivalent of a good trot. There was also sufficient capacity to light up the interior of the cab at all times, a feature that would not always be appreciated by the passengers.
The company’s premises were located in Juxon Street, Lambeth, just off Lambeth Road, and the equipping of the garage involved some considerable investment. The charging apparatus for the batteries was installed on a charging gallery above the main shop floor. When a cab had finished its shift, the battery assembly was removed from the base of the vehicle, hoisted up to the gallery by a lift and a fully charged battery pack lowered, ready for a quick installation. So as long as the batteries had been fully charged, the cabman could expect a reliable cab to drive.
The first Berseys went into service on August 19 1897 and by the end of 1898 the company was running twenty-five, with some reserved for the profitable carriage trade. The public’s initial reaction appeared to be good. They were much reported in the press, and were christened ‘humming birds’, because of the noise of the motors and their bright yellow and black paint. There were reports of them being taken from the ranks in preference to horse cabs, to the annoyance of the horse cabmen who had been waiting for some time for a fare. Some cabmen were keen to drive them and their union supported their arrival but other cabmen feared them, thinking that the motors were ‘explosive’. However, two early incidents tarnished their reputation. The first occurred on September 10 1897, just three weeks after their introduction. A cabman, George Smith was charged with drunken driving in Bond Street while in charge of a Bersey. He was fined £1. The next, tragic incident occurred just three weeks later, when a small boy, nine-year old Stephen Kempton was cadging a ride by standing on the back springs of a Bersey when his coat was caught in the driving chain and he was crushed. He became the first child in Britain to be killed by a motor vehicle.
The cabs were not as economical or as reliable as the company hoped. The range was suspect, and if the batteries were to run out of charge, recovering the cabs was a difficult business. The batteries proved too heavy for the vehicle and wore out the tyres, the motors began to vibrate badly and the battery box was insecurely fitted and slid about when the cab was in motion. The low ground clearance afforded by the battery boxes was considered a hazard: if a pedestrian were to be run over by a Bersey, the argument went then he might be saved from further harm if the ground clearance was sufficient for the cab to continue over him.
The drivers, who at first were happy to pay the company six shillings (30p) per day to hire the cabs soon left when that rate was put up to twelve shillings and tuppence-farthing, (around 66p) the same as that for a hansom. The public soon tired of the novelty of them too, and despite there being some keen adherents, hirings became fewer.
The original vehicles were withdrawn in early 1899, and the company temporarily laid off their cabmen. A few weeks later, Bersey himself wrote to ‘The Autocar’, announcing that no less than 50 of a second type, built by the Gloucester Carriage and Wagon Company were scheduled to reappear on May 28, 1899, alongside the original 25. These had improved batteries and would be painted in new colours. Bersey denied the rumour that they would be fitted with ‘taxameters’, as taximeters were then known, and also announced that several of the new vehicles would be ‘specially fitted and reserved for private hire’.
On Wednesday, May 24 the cabs were paraded around the streets of the capital to announce their return to service. However, Bersey was dismayed by unconfirmed reports that several cabs had been involved in accidents in the Fleet Street and Farringdon areas, and wrote to ‘The Autocar’ magazine about these reports. Apart from explaining that one cab encountered problems with a tyre, he denied that any the so-called dangerous events ever happened and announced that he had put the matter into the hands of his solicitors.
The end was signalled when a Bersey ran out of control and crashed outside Hyde Park Gate. Some elements of the press remained actively hostile, and continued to criticise the Berseys, reducing public confidence. They were removed from service in 1899 and the company ceased to trade, with some of the cabs sold to independent proprietors. Electric cabs in Paris and in New York were also, eventually a failure. The London cab trade would have to wait for technology to catch up with ambition and for four years the horse cabmen had the work to themselves.
Chapter 2 The First Motors
At the beginning of the twentieth century, Britain was on the brink of social and political upheaval. The nation suffered the double blow of the death of Queen Victoria and losing the Boer War. The new King, Edward VII had revolutionised high society by befriending industrialists, men in trade and actresses as well as, and sometimes in preference to the nobility favoured by his parents. The moral tone of the country, more staid members of society would declare, was declining rapidly. Britain’s industry led the world, but was rapidly being overtaken by Germany and the USA, but Germany was also threatening Britain’s empire and dominance of the open seas by building up a very modern navy. However, the prevailing attitude in the country was still that the Empire was unassailable and all that was foreign was inferior. In the new century, Britain would reap the harvest, both bitter and sweet, sown in the Old Queen’s rein.
It was into this world of impending change that Henry Vernon Remnant, the managing director of The London Express Motor Service Ltd., placed the first petrol-powered motor cab on the streets of London, beginning an inevitable revolution, the effects of which have lasted to this day. The London Express Motor Service Ltd. was formed in January 1902. In Britain, where the motor car had been viewed by many as a foreign novelty and often ridiculed, public opinion was beginning to change, and alongside the French and German cars that could be bought in Britain there were a number of British manufacturers, including Daimler, Humber and Lanchester, in business before the old century had passed and all selling their products with some degree of success.
The cab trade in Europe had already recognised the motor car. One of the world's first petrol-powered motor cabs was a Daimler, which ran in Stuttgart. A Benz ran in Berlin and electric cabs were running in Paris at the same time as the Bersey was humming its way along the streets of London. But as the French had accepted the motor car far more readily than the British, and the French motor industry was better established, London Express turned to France for a vehicle of a suitable size, small enough to be economical but of a sufficient power to carry a hansom body. They found it in the Prunel, a Paris-built vehicle with a proprietary 2-cylinder Aster engine. By the end of 1903 Express submitted a Prunel fitted with a hansom body by Henry Whitlock & Co., of Holland Gate, West London, to the Public Carriage Office (PCO) at New Scotland Yard for inspection. The PCO were not prepared to license it immediately, as they surely had reservations about public safety after the problems, real and perceived that had been encountered with the Bersey. But motor cars were now being seen in small but growing numbers on London streets and apart from the attention they drew, were causing little or no problems to traffic, so under pressure placed on Edward Henry, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner by the prominent men on Express’s board, the Prunel was put on test.
The choice of the body fitted to the Prunel was limited by the Conditions of Fitness, the regulations that governed the design and construction of London's horse cabs, to either a hansom or a brougham or landaulette type, the ‘growler’. As the chassis was light and the engine small by comparison to that of the Benz automobildroschken that had run in Berlin, the Prunel would be a two-seat hansom. London cab riders were well used to hansoms, which outnumbered the four-wheeled growler by almost two to one and had been a popular choice for the past seventy years. What was different with the Prunel was that the driver sat in front of the passengers, instead of above and behind. It was the genius of John Chapman, the man who designed the vehicle we call a hansom cab to this day, to build his cab front-heavy and use the cabman’s weight to counterbalance it, whilst placing the passengers directly over the axle where they would not affect the cab’s balance. The Prunel, having four wheels did not require this literal balancing act, and so the cabman sat in front of the passengers.
The Inspecting Officers of Public Carriage Office were all serving, uniformed policemen who had been transferred to this highly specialised branch of the Metropolitan Police. They were trained in the welfare of horses, they understood carriage construction and were well versed in the Conditions of Fitness and London's Cab Acts, but in 1903, besides not understanding what was required of a good motor driver, they had had neither experience with motor cars, nor any need of formal qualifications in motor engineering. However, once the Prunel had completed its tests, they formally licensed it and a second example in May 1904. In the opinion of Express’s connections these two, a third hansom and another with a landaulette body ran well, giving, ‘the greatest satisfaction to both the public and the Vendor Company' in both cab and private hire work. It is not known if these last two were licensed as cabs or retained for private hire, as Metropolitan Police records show that only two motor cabs were licensed in 1904. But by October 1904 Express had withdrawn its Prunels and for a short time, horse cabmen had the work to themselves once more.
Chief Inspector Arthur Bassom, the officer in charge of the PCO fully understood that there was much for him to learn about motor cars. Already many would-be cab makers were following Express’s example and offering their designs to him for approval and he had to take appropriate steps to understand what he and his staff were being asked to examine. In February 1905 wrote a memo to Commissioner Henry, his new chief at Scotland Yard requesting that he and Sub-divisional Inspector Beckley be trained in motor mechanics and driving to cope with ‘the great increase in motor vehicles being presented.’ He did not want to be ‘at the mercy of every person who professes knowledge.’ Commissioner Henry approved the request and that spring, Bassom and Beckley attended a twelve-week evening course at one of the polytechnics that were offering tuition. On completion of it they passed on their knowledge to their staff. Now they felt they were ready for what they knew would be a major change in the cab trade.
The Rational
If Vernon Remnant intended to run the first company operating a fleet of motor cabs on a commercial basis, he was beaten to it. That honour went to London Motor Cab Company of Manor Street, Chelsea who put six Rational cabs to work in May 1905. The Rational also had the privilege of being the first British-built petrol-powered cab to be licensed. It was designed and made by Heatly-Gresham Engineering at Bassingbourne, Cambridgeshire. The firm’s owners, Harry Heatly and Frank Gresham were members of the Automobile Club, with Heatly a founder member.
The Rational was powered by a water-cooled twin-cylinder engine slung horizontally under the driver's seat, driving through a two-speed epicyclic transmission and a single chain. Its fully enclosed body was built by a Hertfordshire coachbuilder and was similar to a design fitted as early as 1903 on a 6hp Wolseley chassis. An improvement over the open-fronted hansom, it had the look of a proper modern motor carriage, not a hybrid. David Hamdorff's book, "Seventeen Taxis?" tells the Rational story. A study of the vehicles illustrated in this book might suggest that, rather than seventeen, no more than six were licensed as London cabs as the other chassis were fitted with private coachwork. Some had a wheelbase too long or too short for cab work, but as the chassis rails were of wood, it was a simple matter to cut timbers to a length required by a customer. Heatly-Gresham Engineering soon moved to larger premises in Letchworth, Hertfordshire but it is understood that motor vehicle production was not continued at the new factory.
The Metropolitan Motor Cab and Carriage Company
Despite being beaten to the punch by Heatly and Gresham, Remnant and company continued, undaunted. The economics of running the Prunels had been carefully assessed by Chartered Accountants William E. Pearse and the venture promised to be viable. Under the chairmanship of the Earl of Ranfurly, a former Governor of New Zealand, the Metropolitan Motor Cab and Carriage Company was formed to take over the assets of the Express, with Remnant as the managing director.
The share prospectus of May 1905 carried a picture of a Prunel, with the caption 'London's New Hansom Cab', and stated that Metropolitan's aim was to put sixty motor cabs on the streets within six months. But instead of Prunels, Metropolitan ordered Manchester-built Heralds from S. R. Bailey and Lambert, Herald’s London representatives and were a licence-built version of the French Hérald. Twenty were promised at first, with the rest to be delivered within three months of the date the company began trading.
The Vauxhall Hansom- Metropolitan's Folly
The new Heralds were not delivered when Metropolitan had anticipated. One can only speculate as to why, but a possible reason was that Metropolitan were unable to raise enough capital. Even at this time, the threat of war was in the air and investors on the Stock Exchange were looking for safe, quick returns, not for untried, medium term investments such as motor cab companies. However, in August 1905 Metropolitan ordered five 12/14hp Vauxhalls, reportedly at the instigation of Lord Ranfurly. The 12/14 car, fitted with a 2400cc three-cylinder sidevalve engine and a 3-speed gearbox mounted in a flitch-plated wooden chassis, was produced from 1904 at Vauxhall's original South London factory but had been deleted from the catalogue by the end of 1905. Vauxhall were moving to new premises in Luton, Bedfordshire, and the 12/14s may well have been unsold stock. Certainly the price suggests this. They were originally offered, with a 2-seat body, for £375. Vauxhall invoiced Metropolitan for £339 per vehicle, each to be fitted with a hansom cab body by Forder of Long Acre, one of the most popular and respected of hansom cab makers, with roof racks for luggage at £2/10s extra.
Metropolitan took delivery of their Vauxhalls, after one had been displayed at the Olympia Motor Exhibition, in November of 1905. They were a failure. It was not the fault of the base vehicle but of the placing of the driver above and behind the passengers, which, probably was done not through some whim or tradition but of necessity. The wheelbase was short, and placing the cabman in front of the passengers would make access for the passengers difficult.
It was reported at the time that the Vauxhall was popular with cabmen, but this is extremely doubtful. Because of the position of the driver’s seat, every control had to be remotely operated, giving a very vague feel. The seating arrangement was reported to have also unnerved the passengers. The hirer of a horse-drawn hansom knew that the horse would have more sense than to run into any danger, and he could at least see the effect of the cabman taking up the reins to negotiate a hazard. With the Vauxhall, he could see no signs and word would have quickly spread of such an unpleasant experience. A potential cab passenger has to this day the right to choose any cab from a rank that he or she takes a fancy to, and if riding in a Vauxhall was now considered a very unpleasant experience, then the Vauxhall driver might well have found himself passed over.
Surviving records suggest that only three Vauxhalls were delivered: three engine numbers were recorded against the five chassis numbers. A second version with the driver seated over the engine was built but it is understood that it was retained at Luton for use as a factory runabout. It is also possible that cabmen began refusing to drive the cabs, as the public no longer took them. The company withdrew them by March 1906 as fifteen of the promised Heralds, fitted with hansom bodies had been delivered. Further Heralds would have landaulette bodies.
Other Pioneers
During 1905 Bassom’s team did indeed have to examine many more motor cabs put forward by aspiring proprietors. These included a 14/16hp Straker and MacConnell, a German Dixi hansom and the Lloyd and Plaister hansom, which had a 2-cylinder under-floor engine and a roof that extended over the driver. This cab, built by Lewis Lloyd in partnership with W. E. Plaister was renamed the Simplex, and, possibly acquired at the same time by another firm, but it was short-lived. The company experienced trouble gaining PCO approval for this already obsolete vehicle but when finally licensed at the end of 1905 the cabs were put to work by the Motor Hansom Company. Some, if not all were re-bodied as landaulettes.
Enter Ford
Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company in the USA in 1903. UK sales were handled by Percival Perry's Central Motor Car Company Ltd., in London’s Covent Garden. In his 'Brief History of Ford in Britain', Perry, who began his career in the motor trade with Harry Lawson cites that Ford’s first model, the Model A was subject to a popular prejudice that regarded American cars as cheap and crude. Ford’s second model, the 4-cylinder, 20hp Model B was exhibited at the Agricultural Hall in Islington in March 1905. Perry had faith in the quality of Ford cars and in Henry Ford’s ability to deliver the merchandise. He felt that the Model B would prove reliable in cab work and that would convince the sceptical British public that Ford cars were worth buying. By October the Automobile Cab Company of Chester Gate, NW1 had announced its intention to put a fleet of Model Bs onto London's streets. The Ford had a two-speed epicyclic gearbox, and, according to Perry its ease of use would attract a considerable number of horse cabmen over to motors, as it would be far easier to drive than a cab with a manual gearbox. Initially three chassis were ordered, fitted with landaulette bodies and put to work by the end of the year. So that the public would easily recognise them as cabs as distinct from the growing number of privately owned landaulettes, the Automobile Cab Company claimed that they would paint the cabs white, but surviving photographs do not show any finished like this.
The Automobile Cab Company then announced that they had ordered two hundred Fords at £360 each. In the event, Ford delivered less than twenty. At a shareholders' meeting in February 1906 the Automobile Cab Company's chairman, Sir James T. Ritchie, said that the company had received less than one quarter of its subscription target of £100,000. Sir James also said that Ford were changing their production methods and were unwilling to complete the order. Ford was about to build a new factory, the Piquette Avenue plant in Detroit where they planned to increase in production. New regulations, the Conditions of Fitness were about to be announced by the PCO and the Fords would not comply with them, so Ford’s may well have refused to build a specially adapted Model B for what would be, in comparison to their potential market in the USA, an insignificant order. The Automobile Cab Company considered legal action but when they threatened Henry Ford, his reply was, “Fire away!”
As it was, Ford made just 500 Model B cars before moving on to a new model, so modifying the chassis to suit the Conditions of Fitness might have enabled him to capture a significant slice of the market and more than double his production, but it was not to be. Percival Perry would play the pivotal role in establishing Ford as a major manufacturer in the UK but in over one hundred years of Ford's history, the Model B was the only Ford that was ever licensed as a cab in London.
The Conditions of Fitness
Regulations governing the design and construction of London's horse cabs had been in place since the middle of the seventeenth century, but for the first three years of the motor cab’s existence, no specific rules were in place for them. Armed with some knowledge of vehicle mechanics, Chief Inspector Bassom was moved to change this. Already in existence was the Motor Car Act of 1903, which had introduced vehicle and driver licensing. Following this in 1904 was the Motor Cars (Use and Construction) Act. For the first time, brakes, lights, tyres and steering as well as the behaviour of drivers were regulated. Bassom felt that with regard to using motor cars to convey the general public for commercial gain, and in safety, the new laws did not go far enough.
On the recommendation of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, (who, the previous year as John Scott-Montagu MP had inherited the title from his father) engaged the services of W. Worby Beaumont who, in 1900 had written a book entitled, ‘Motor Vehicles and Motors: Their Design Construction and Working by Steam, Oil and Electricity’. Worby Beaumont framed the ‘Metropolitan Police Regulations for the Construction and Licensing of Hackney (Motor) Carriages, 1906’, subtitled, ‘Notice to Proprietors as to the conditions for obtaining a Certificate of Fitness for Motor Hackney Carriages’. In these new ‘Conditions of Fitness’, as they became known it was accepted, quite properly, that first and foremost any motor cab had to comply with existing laws, i. e. the aforementioned 1903 and 1904 Acts, plus the Light Locomotive Acts of 1896 and 1898 and the orders of the local government board. (In this case, the London County Council). Over and above these, the rules would demand that when the car (this expression had by now come into use for all sizes and types of motor vehicle, regardless of size or type) be presented for inspection it should have had no alteration made to it since it was last inspected. And if any were made, then the PCO would, if necessary, employ an expert, namely Worby Beaumont to advise on them.
The regulations placed safety and passenger comfort above all. They demanded that liquid fuel tanks be made of a suitable material of sufficient strength, and sited so that there should be no overflow onto woodwork where it might catch fire. Electrical wiring was to be sufficiently insulated. Neither of these points were addressed in the 1904 Use and Construction Act.
Two types of body were permitted: a hansom or, alternatively, a landaulette or brougham. Dimensions for the interior were quite specific, requiring for instance a distance between the seat cushion and the roof of forty inches. Thus a gentleman could maintain the propriety of wearing his top hat whilst riding in a cab. This is still possible in London cabs today.
The front road springs were to be fixed not less than 32 inches apart from outside to outside and the minimum wheel track was to be four feet four inches. There would also be a maximum length of fourteen feet, a maximum width of five feet, nine inches and a rule that called for a minimum ground clearance of ten inches, as far back as the lowest point of the back axle. This was to ensure that if anyone was unfortunate enough to be hit by a motor cab they would not be further harmed if the vehicle drove over them before coming to a stop. Viewed from today’s perspective, this sounds bizarre, but in fact part of the opposition to the Bersey had been the very low ground clearance afforded by the battery boxes.
The turning circle was to be just twenty-five feet. There was a reason for it, although not an obvious one to modern minds and it was to do with public health. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, London’s overcrowded slums and hopelessly inadequate sewerage system had caused frequent outbreaks of cholera and been responsible for the general bad health of its poorest citizens. The Metropolitan Board of Works had been created in 1855, in part to oversee the cleaning up of the capital and by the turn of the century London’s streets were beginning to be covered in tarmac and the pedestrian crossings were regularly swept clean of horse manure. To prevent a build-up up manure in the gutters, the Metropolitan Board of Works’ successor, the London County Council insisted that cab ranks were to be sited in the middle of the road. A horse-drawn vehicle, either two- or four-wheeled can turn in its own length, so that when a cab was hailed from the kerbside, it could turn around to pick up a passenger with a minimum of disruption. It might be argued that the waste products of motor cabs would not be deposited in piles in the road, so that motor cabs might be permitted to rank by the kerbside, but when the Conditions of Fitness for motor cabs were being framed, horse cabs were still very much in the majority. A further consideration for making the rule for a tight turning circle was that traffic congestion in London had always been bad, so anything that might cause a delay was to be avoided. If a motor cab were to be hired in the same way and the road insufficiently wide to allow a U-turn, a three-point turn, with the primitive steering and transmissions of the day would have taken far too long. Self-starters then were non-existent and if the driver stalled the motor, restarting by hand would have held the traffic up for several minutes. If a cab were capable of a U-turn then such incidents might be avoided. To illustrate how strongly the authorities felt about the possible disruption caused by three-point turns, a move to ban them within a three-mile radius of Charing Cross would be put forward, although not followed through.
Last of all was a paragraph that would establish the Public Carriage Office's complete authority in the matter of motor cab design. It stated:
“(NOTE: Though the above conditions may have been complied with, yet, if there be anything in the construction, form, or general appearance which, in the opinion of the commissioner, renders the carriage unfit for public use, it will not be licensed.)”
The motoring press welcomed the principle behind the regulations, as they enhanced vehicle safety but the editor of ‘Motor Traction’ magazine was opposed to the tight turning circle. On reading an advance copy dated March 23 1906, he wrote to Commissioner Henry to voice his opinion on this topic, suggesting a ‘more generous minimum’ of 30ft or 35ft should be allowed. But Henry backed Bassom and Worby Beaumont and stood firm on the 25ft rule. It is apparent from the motoring press of the previous year that the PCO had considered an even tighter, twenty-one foot turning circle, so the established one was almost a relaxation in itself.
Whatever their reception, the new Conditions of Fitness were timely. Between 1896 and 1905 more than thirty firms making motor cars had established themselves in Britain, although the numbers of vehicles they produced was still small. Between 1906 and 1907 the number of makers virtually doubled. To prosper, car makers had to build cars that were powerful and capacious enough for at least four people, but more affordable to a wider market. From being literally a ‘horseless carriage’ the car had developed such that it conformed, largely to a standard type, the Systeme Panhard, with the engine in front and the driver seated immediately behind and to one side with a wheel for him to steer it. Most importantly for the cab trade, models with engines of around 2-litres capacity and power of around 12-15hp were beginning to appear as a popular size, which proved to be an optimum size for cab work. Now Londoners would see if the motor cab could truly be made viable.
Mann and Overton’s Garage
John Thomas Overton was a young man who, at the end of the 19th century was living on his family's farm in Sutton, Surrey. Tom, as he was known, was more interested in motor cars than in farming, so in 1898 he went to the best place he knew to find out about them, which was Paris. There he met a Mancunian, John James Mann, who was buying French and German cars and sending them to sell at his Motor Car Agency in London's Mortimer Street. They joined forces to form Mann and Overton’s, to sell German Daimler and French Hotchkiss and Georges-Richard cars from the Victoria Garage in Lower Belgrave Street, Pimlico.
As well as his interest in Mann and Overton's, Mann became the works manager of the Manchester car firm of Marshall and he drove one of their cars in the 1900 1000-mile trial. With these activities keeping him busy, he seemed happy to leave the day-to-day running of Mann and Overton’s Garage to Tom Overton. Overton soon came to see that cab work would be an excellent way of testing and promoting motor cars, but what they wanted was the right vehicle. For them it was the 12hp Richard-Brasier, which they introduced to London in 1905. The Richard-Brasier came from the Paris factory owned originally by brothers Georges and Maxime Richard, but that was not the name carried by the first cars to be made there. That name was Georges-Richard, and it and all subsequent models around this time were designed by Henri Brasier. In 1904 Georges Richard left the company to set up on his own and subsequent models made in the original factory were sold under the name of Richard-Brasier.
The Town Motor Carriage Competition
Between October 15 and 17, 1906 the Automobile Club (soon to become the Royal Automobile Club) held a Competition for Town Motor Carriages at the Wolseley Tool and Motor Company's garage in Waterloo, South London. Mann and Overton’s entered two 12hp Richard-Brasiers in class A for vehicles costing up to £600. They were fitted with limousine bodies, one by Bagley and Ellis and the other by a French company, Alfred Belvalette. Another Richard-Brasier was entered by one of Mann and Overton's customers, the City and Suburban Motor Cab Company. This had a French cab body, by La Carrosserie Industrielle. All three put up a respectable showing, with the City and Suburban cab winning a silver medal for a Public Service Vehicle. These results were undoubtedly a great fillip for Mann and Overton’s business.
Entered also was a 16hp Argyll cab, driven all the way from its factory in Alexandria, north of Glasgow. Since 1900, Argyll had been building cars with a reputation for solidity and reliability. The 1905 Argyll cab was a heavy, close-coupled vehicle with the driver placed above the engine. It was designed to replace the four-wheeled growler whose domain, because of its capacity for carrying luggage, was the railway station. Despite some intense promotion, the Argyll cab would not be approved by the PCO, as its 30ft turning circle did not comply with the Conditions of Fitness.
It was a sign of the times that the highest placed vehicle in class A was an American Oppermann Electric, with a hansom cab body by Cleaver Brothers. Pitted against internal combustion-engined vehicles, its success was virtually a foregone conclusion, as the judging criteria included smooth starting, absence of fumes and silence in running. However, the Oppermann was not licensed for use as a cab in London and the company went out of business the following year.
Obsolescence For Early Makes
Both the Conditions of Fitness and the progress in motor car design would see off a number of makes. The Herald, with its long wheelbase could not be adapted to meet the turning circle or maximum specified length. Other makes, like the Pullcar, a vehicle designed to mate a simple tractor unit to existing carriage bodies was already an anachronism. The Simplex, too would become obsolete in the face of new, more powerful makes.
Union Approval for Motor Cabs
At this time very few investors seemed to be willing to take a punt with the motor cab business, and the major horse cab masters were opposed to their introduction, fearing the enormous investment required would not yield the return they were then enjoying. However, the London Cab Drivers Trade Union realised that motors were the future, and in January 1905 set up driving and mechanical knowledge classes for their members. Writing in their official publication, the South London area secretary, Will Wright, asked what would happen if, “a company decides to place a fleet of 400 motor cabs on the streets and we don't get our men (i. e. the Union members) on them?”
‘The General’
Wright surely knew of something big that was about to happen. Among the spectators of the Town Motor Carriages Competition may well have been the Hon. David Dalziel MP and Edward Cohen, directors of the General Motor Cab Company Ltd., a company formed using a considerable amount of capital from the Paris based Compagnie Generale des Voitures. If so, their interest was because of a massive project of their own, which had been under way since May of that year. Less than six weeks before the competition, the General Motor Cab Company's contractors had begun clearing a site occupied by old houses and overgrown with trees and grass, at the junction of Brixton Road and Camberwell New Road. Using a structure of steel joists covered in red and yellow brick, they were erecting a new purpose-built cab garage.