Victorian horse-drawn omnibuses were transport for the masses in the 19th
Century. Common to the streets of London since 1829, and cheaper than travel by cab,
a whole plethora of competing companies vied for trade until regulated in 1855.
This didn’t put a stop to complaints of bus drivers racing each other in competition for
the best routes – not to mention the noise, commotion and surly nature of drivers!
Of course, the unceasing march of industrialization and ‘progress’ signalled the
end for horse drawn buses - and a business which demanded a complicated system of
feeding, stabling and fresh horses throughout the day. Horse cars on rails,
tram lines and railways had power and capacity for many more passengers,
and were soon replacing less efficient horse-drawn buses in the latter years of the
19th Century. It is against this background of technological and cultural change in
transport that we meet ‘Cast-iron Billy’, - A veteran bus-driver struggling to adapt to a
changing world powered by animals to one of machines. He tells us the story of life and
career, as told in an account from 'Street Life in London', 1877,
by John Thomson and Adolphe Smith, and is narrated in the words of Smith.
Thomson was a talented and influential photographer who joined with Smith,
a journalist, in a project to photograph the street life of London's poor. The authors
were careful not to varnish their words for an audience. What they saw and heard
accurately reflects their interactions with everyday people and genuinely immerses
the reader in authentic Victorian street life. You can check the in-video cards and
description for links to more interesting videos about the Victorians. In particular
we have 'Street Life in London' from the same authors, which opens a window on
more genuinely more wonderful characters from Victorian London and the hard lives
they led. Do check it out. Before we start please consider clicking the bottom right
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“Forty-three years on the road, and more," said Cast-iron Billy; "and, but for my
'rheumatics,' I feel almost as 'ale' and 'earty' as any gentleman could wish. But I’m lost,
I’ve been put off my perch. I don't mind telling of you I'm not so 'andy wi' the ribbons
as in my younger days I was. Twice in my life I’ve been put off, and this finishes me.
I'll never hold the whip again that's been in my hand these three and forty year, never!
I can't sit at 'ome', my perch up there was more 'ome' to me than 'any think.'
Havin' lost that I'm no good to nobody; a fish out o' water I be."
William Parragreen, known as ‘Cast-iron Billy,’ may be said to have commenced life
with the whip in his hand. With an inborn aptitude for the profession he took to the
road early. Whip in hand he mounted his father's cab, and continued for some years
to pilot the vehicle through the busy streets of London.
In the days when the Royal Mails ran from the Post Office, with their armed guards
and passengers, prepared for long weary journeys, William was fired with the
ambition to drive some more imposing conveyance than the old four-wheeler.
At last his hopes were realized, and he commenced his career as omnibus driver
on the London roads. This event was indelibly fixed in his memory as it happened
in 1834, when the old Houses of Parliament were destroyed by fire.
The first locomotive was running successfully between Manchester and
Liverpool, although it was regarded by many as a fool-hardy experiment that would
speedily come to an end. The first accident on the rails led our hero to believe that the
new mode of travelling would not answer. "There was safety and comfort in the old
mail, but to be smashed up into minced meat by steam is the sort o' thing folks
wouldn't stand." But he has advanced with the times, and now regards the railroad
as the great feeder of his own and every other sort of labour in the metropolis.
Two or three years later William engaged himself to the London Conveyance
Company. After fourteen years' faithful service the stock was sold off, and he was
discharged. "Don't know if they was broke, or wot. They sold off." He next found
employment with a job-master for about twelve months, but in the end was turned
adrift, and two years elapsed before he again obtained regular employment.
This, he assured me, was the only time in his life in which he came to grief.
Fortune smiled once more, and he entered as driver to the London General Omnibus
Company, in whose service he has ended his career on the road. "Now," he pathetically
remarked, "I'm too old to look ahead. There's the 'workus' on one side; it's not pleasant,
and who knows? on t'other, perhaps, some sporting gent wanting me to keep his gate.
I might do that; you see I could sit in front fourteen hour out o' the twenty-four, always
'andy." This then is the poor man's paradise, to have some settled spot where
he could sit out his days, in imagination perched on his old seat above his steady-
going ‘cattle.’ He confessed that the post would have its drawbacks.
He would miss the scenes of city life, the traffic of the streets, the excitement
of racing against opposition. He would miss, too, the greeting of his old patrons,
whose front seats were held sacred for the morning and evening journeys.
He would lose the run of those whom he had carried to and fro for years, and who,
owing to the punctuality of his omnibus at the corner, had risen to fame and fortune.
Unlike a well-known aged driver on another metropolitan route, who has amassed
two thousand pounds, William was never able to do more than keep things going at
home. His first wife was for many years an invalid, and a drain on his resources.
His children, who were sickly, needed constant tending. Nor is his poverty to be
attributed to intemperance, although he owned to taking "a drop o' liquor to keep the
frost out in winter, and stave off the heat in summer;" he also defied any man to say
that he had seen him drunk when he should have been sober.
"Nothin' like old Skyler, one o' the best whips on the road; he's over seventy, and rides
'jobbin post,' or drives to the Derby four-in-hand. But he never goes to bed sober,
not if he knows it! He'll swallow more 'dog-noses', in a journey than most men livin'."
The subject of the photograph lost his position as driver, owing to his inability to
cope with younger men driving opposition omnibuses along the same route.
In this instance the omnibuses crossed each other, the younger and more active
men so taking the lead as to pick up all the passengers. This was not all; our veteran
had become so enfeebled as to require help to mount his perch, while the reins had to be
secured to his coat, as he has partially lost the use of his left hand.
The practice of racing, to the detriment of vehicles and discomfort of passengers,
has been in vogue for half a century; but my informant remarked that in the
"good old days" the struggle raged more fiercely than it does now.
Then there were many small proprietors running a neck-and-neck race for a living.
The large companies which now monopolize the routes have in some
measure tended to check the evil. At the same time the daily earnings of each
conveyance depends so much on the joint efforts of driver and conductor,
that they do not scruple to urge on their steeds when it suits their convenience.
The demands thus made upon the strength of the horses soon renders them unfit for
the road. I have been assured by more authorities than one that such horses as are
employed will, on an average, stand omnibus work no longer than eight years.
It is curious to observe that both horse and conveyance must be renewed at about the
same time. I gather from the Police Report for 1875 that in six years 8,180 public
conveyances were condemned as unfit for use. In 1875, 9,684 licences were granted
for public conveyances in the metropolitan district. It will be seen, therefore, that the
whole of the public conveyances of London are renewed about every eight years.
The number of omnibuses running last year within the metropolitan area was 1,448;
horses, allowing ten to each omnibus, 14,480; drivers, conductors, and horse-
keepers, 4344. The men employed in omnibus work are, as a class, fairly healthy,
notwithstanding their exposure to all weathers, and that they labour fourteen
hours out of every twenty-four. The supply of men flows from a great variety of
sources; the majority of the drivers have been trained early in the management of
horses. In some cases the education thus bestowed has been so purely professional
as to leave the men ignorant of the most rudimentary branches of knowledge.
For all that, some of them have filled better positions, they have owned their own studs,
and driven their own coaches. One I may mention was at one time a man of property,
and an authority on all matters relating to the ‘turf’. Early in life he made up his mind,
seemingly, to spend his money, and to live merrily while it lasted; and when his funds
were gone he settled down, cheerfully enough, to driving an omnibus.
Quite recently he has come in for a windfall, in the shape of a legacy of over a thousand
pounds. Immediately on his receiving the money he descended from his perch,
and was last seen lolling over the bar of a restaurant, smoking a fragrant cigar,
and wearing a suit most horsey and juvenile; a white hat, tilted so as to partially
shade the left eye, would have completed his attire, but for a narrow black band
with which it was adorned. The band was possibly worn in grateful remembrance
of the friend who left him the money, or for the money that had already gone in
procuring some fleeting pleasure for its owner. Be that as it may, when the legacy
has been squandered its owner will doubtless resume his seat on the box.
Omnibus conductors are drawn from the ranks of unfortunate clerks, mechanics, and
tradesmen of all sorts. No special training being required for the duties of a conductor,
the post is open to all comers who can read and write, and who can produce some
satisfactory reference as to character. The pay is 4 Shillings a day, but the ‘black mail’
exacted from them in various ways renders it almost impossible for them to exist on
their pay. There being, moreover, no proper check on their drawings, the men are
exposed to the greatest temptations. It is in some instances tacitly understood by
employers that the taxes imposed on conductors (for tips and treats to driver,
horse-keeper, etc., etc.) shall be taken from the fares; were this not so, and the
conductor strictly honest, his fourteen hours' work would go for next to nothing.