A horse-bus or horse-drawn omnibus was a large, enclosed, and sprunghorse-drawn vehicle used for passenger transport before the introduction of motor vehicles. It was mainly used in the late 19th century in both the United States and Europe, and was one of the most common means of transportation in cities. In a typical arrangement, two wooden benches along the sides of the passenger cabin held several sitting passengers facing each other. The driver sat on a separate, front-facing bench, typically in an elevated position outside the passengers' enclosed cabin. In the main age of horse buses, many of them were double-decker buses. On the upper deck, which was uncovered, the longitudinal benches were arranged back to back.
Similar, if smaller, vehicles were often maintained at country houses (and by some hotels and railway companies) to convey servants and luggage to and from railway stations. Especially popular around 1870–1900, these vehicles were known as 'private omnibuses' or 'station buses'; coachman-driven, they would usually accommodate four to six passengers inside, with room for luggage (and sometimes additional seating) on the roof.[1]
A small open wagon with or without a top, but with an arrangement of the seats similar to horse-drawn omnibuses, was called a wagonette.
Etymology
Bus is a clipped form of the Latin word omnibus. A legend, promoted by the French Transportations Museum website, says the name is derived from a hatter's shop of the Omnes family in front of the first station opened in Nantes by Stanislas Baudry in 1823. "Omnes Omnibus" was a pun on the Latin-sounding name of that hatter Omnès: omnes (nominative plural) meaning "all" and omnibus (dative plural) meaning "for all" in Latin. Thence, the legend concludes, Nantes citizens gave the nickname of Omnibus to the vehicle.[2]
Though it is undisputed that the term arose with Stanislas Baudry's company, there is no record of any Omnès hatter living in that street. In 1892, the son of Baudry's bookkeeper wrote in the Bulletin de la Société archéologique de Nantes that omnibus had a simpler origin. Baudry used to call his horsecars Dames blanches (White ladies), a name which, critics told him, made no sense. He then replied, with the Latin word: "Then, these are omnibus cars!" (cars for all). The name caught on immediately. Other stories about the name origin quickly spread out.
The term 'omnibus' carried over to motor vehicles. The 1914 book Motor Body-building in all its Branches, by Christopher William Terry, described an omnibus as having longitudinal seats in rows with either a rear door or side doors.[3]
History
The first known public bus line (known as a "Carriage" at that time) were carrosses à cinq sols launched by Blaise Pascal in 1662 in Paris. It was quite popular until fares were increased and access to the service was restricted to high society members by regulation. Services ceased after 15 years.[2][4]
In Britain, John Greenwood opened the first bus line in Britain in Manchester in 1824. His pioneering idea was to offer a service where, unlike with a stagecoach, no prior booking was necessary and the driver would pick up or set down passengers anywhere on request. The first omnibus was introduced in London in 1831.[5] In 1833, legislation was passed to allow these long-bodied vehicles to ply the streets of the city, provided the drivers and conductors took out a license and wore a badge with a number on it.
A Paris omnibus in 1828
The Paris omnibus was started in 1828 by a businessman named Stanislas Baudry, who had begun the first French omnibus line in Nantes in 1826, using two spring-suspended carriages, each for 16 passengers.[6] Following success in Nantes, Baudry moved to Paris and founded the Enterprise des Omnibus on rue de Lancre, with workshops on the quai de Jemmapes. In 1827 he commissioned an English coach-maker, George Shillibeer, to design a vehicle that could be stable and carry a large number of passengers. Shillibeer's design worked. On 28 April 1828, the first Paris omnibus began service, running every fifteen minutes between La Madeleine and la Bastille. Before long, there were one hundred omnibuses in service, with eighteen different itineraries. A journey cost twenty-five centimes. The omnibuses circulated between seven in the morning and seven in the evening; each omnibus could carry between twelve and eighteen passengers. The busiest line was that along the Grand Boulevards; it ran from eight in the morning until midnight. [7]
The Paris omnibus service was an immediate popular success, with more than two and a half million passengers in the first six months. There was no reliable way to collect money from the passengers, or the fare collectors kept much of the money for themselves; In its first years the company was continually on the verge of bankruptcy, and in despair, Baudry committed suicide in February 1830. Baudry's partners reorganized the company and managed to keep it in business.[7]
In September 1828, a competing company, les Dames-Blanches, had started running its own vehicles. In 1829 and the following years, more companies with poetic names entered the business; les Citadines, les Tricycles, les Orléanises, les Diligentes, les Écossaises, les Béarnaises, les Carolines, les Batignollaises, les Parisiennes, les Hirondelles, les Joséphines, les Excellentes, les Sylphides, les Constantines, les Dames-Françaises, les Algériennes, les Dames-Réunies, and les Gazelles. The omnibus had a profound effect on Parisian life, making it possible for Parisians to work and have a social life outside their own neighborhoods.[8]
By 1845, 13 companies in Paris operated 20 or 23 omnibus lines. In 1855, Napoleon III had them combined into a single company, the Compagnie générale des omnibus, with a monopoly on Paris public transportation. Beginning in 1873, they were gradually replaced by tramways, and, beginning in 1906, by the omnibus automobile, or motor bus. The last horse-drawn Paris omnibus ran on 11 January 1913, from Saint-Sulpice to La Villette.[7]
George Shillibeer's first London omnibus, 1829
Buses have been used on the streets of London since 1829. George Shillibeer saw the success of the Paris omnibus in service and concluded that operating similar vehicles in London would be commercially successful. His first London "Omnibus", using the same design and name as the Paris vehicle, took up service on 4 July 1829 on the route between Paddington, The Yorkshire Stingo, and Bank via the New Road (now Marylebone Road), Somers Town and City Road. Four services were provided in each direction daily. Shillibeer's success prompted many competitors to enter the market, and for a time buses were referred to as 'Shillibeers'.[9] Shillibeer built another bus for the QuakerNewington Academy for Girls near London; this had a total of 25 seats, and entered history as the first school bus. On London omnibuses, the introduction of the clerestory roof in 1847, to provide more headroom inside, allowed the provision of a longitudinal seat on the upper deck. Outside fares were, like stage coaches, cheaper than for travelling inside.[10]
The public transport system of Berlin is the oldest one in Germany. In 1825 the first bus line from Brandenburger Tor to Charlottenburg was opened by Simon Kremser, running to a timetable.[13] The first bus service inside the city operated from 1840 between Alexanderplatz and Potsdamer Bahnhof. It was run by Israel Moses Henoch, who had organized the cab service since 1815.[14][15] On 1 January 1847, the Concessionierte Berliner Omnibus Compagnie (Berlin Bus Concession Company) started its first horse-bus line. The growing market experienced the launch of numerous additional companies, with 36 bus companies in Berlin by 1864.
From the end of the 1820s, the first horse-drawn omnibuses ran in the streets of New York City,[16] facilitating the march uptown.
Horsebus in Copenhagen, 1907
Horses pulling buses could only work for limited hours per day, had to be housed, groomed, fed and cared for every day, and produced large amounts of manure, which the omnibus company had to store and dispose of. Since a typical horse pulled a bus for four or five hours per day, covering about a dozen miles, many systems needed ten or more horses in stable for each bus.
With the advent of mass-produced steel in around 1860, horse-buses were put on rails as the same horse could then move 3 to 10 times as many people. This was not only more efficient, but faster and produced, in an age of unpaved streets, a far superior ride. These horse drawn trams were converted to cable-drawn cars in some larger cities, as still exist in San Francisco, the underground cable being driven by stationary steam engines.
At around 1890, electric propulsion became practical and replaced both the horse and the cable and the number of tram lines expanded exponentially. This was seen as a huge advance in urban transport and considered a wise investment at that time. These became known as streetcars, trams or trolleys, and still exist in many cities today, though often having been replaced by the less infrastructure intensive motorbus.
Preserved 1857 horse bus in Copenhagen
From the beginning of the twentieth century the remaining horse buses which had not been converted to rail began to be replaced by petrol-driven motor buses, or autobuses. The last recorded horse omnibus in London was a Tilling bus which last ran, between Peckham and Honor Oak Tavern, on 4 August 1914.[17] The last Berlin horse omnibus ran on 25 August 1923. Some horse buses remain in use today for tourist sightseeing tours.
See also
Bus or autobus, the later motorized multi-person vehicle
Stagecoach another type of horse-drawn passenger carriage for longer distances
Bibliography
Fierro, Alfred (1996). Histoire et dictionnaire de Paris. Robert Laffont. ISBN2-221-07862-4.
Héron de Villefosse, René (1959). Histoire de Paris. Bernard Grasset.
Related Research Articles
A bus is a motor vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van, but fewer than the average rail transport. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for charter purposes, or through private ownership. Although the average bus carries between 30 and 100 passengers, some buses have a capacity of up to 300 passengers. The most common type is the single-deck rigid bus, with double-decker and articulated buses carrying larger loads, and midibuses and minibuses carrying smaller loads. Coaches are used for longer-distance services. Many types of buses, such as city transit buses and inter-city coaches, charge a fare. Other types, such as elementary or secondary school buses or shuttle buses within a post-secondary education campus, are free. In many jurisdictions, bus drivers require a special large vehicle licence above and beyond a regular driving license.
A coach is a type of bus built for longer-distance service, in contrast to transit buses that are typically used within a single metropolitan region. Often used for touring, intercity, and international bus service, coaches are also used for private charter for various purposes. Coaches are also related and fall under a specific category/type of RVs.
A carriage is a two- or four-wheeled horse-drawn vehicle for passengers. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping or, on those made in recent centuries, steel springs. Two-wheeled carriages are usually owner-driven.
A hackney or hackney carriage is a carriage or car for hire. A hackney of a more expensive or high class was called a remise. A symbol of London and Britain, the black taxi is a common sight on the streets of London. The hackney carriages carry a roof sign TAXI that can be illuminated to indicate their availability for passengers.
Buses have been used as a mode of public transport in London since 1829, when George Shillibeer started operating a horse-drawn omnibus service from Paddington to the City of London. In the decades since their introduction, the red London bus has become a symbol of the city. In 2019, buses accounted for 11 per cent of trips taken in the city.
The London General Omnibus Company or LGOC, was the principal bus operator in London between 1855 and 1933. It was also, for a short period between 1909 and 1912, a motor bus manufacturer.
George Shillibeer was an English coachbuilder.
Paris is the centre of a national, and with air travel, international, complex transport system. The modern system has been superimposed on a complex map of streets and wide boulevards that were set in their current routes in the 19th century. On a national level, it is the centre of a web of road and railway, and at a more local level, it is covered with a dense mesh of bus, tram and metro service networks.
A horse-drawn vehicle is a piece of equipment pulled by one or more horses. These vehicles typically have two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have mostly been replaced by automobiles and other forms of self-propelled transport but are still in use today.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transport:
A steam bus is a bus powered by a steam engine. Early steam-powered vehicles designed for carrying passengers were more usually known as steam carriages, although this term was sometimes used to describe other early experimental vehicles too.
The Tilling Group was one of two conglomerates that controlled almost all of the major bus operators in the United Kingdom between World Wars I and II and until nationalisation in 1948.
Public transport bus services are generally based on regular operation of transit buses along a route calling at agreed bus stops according to a published public transport timetable.
The Horseshoe Barn and Horseshoe Barn Annex are two exhibit buildings located at Shelburne Museum in Shelburne, Vermont. Both buildings exhibit a variety of horse-drawn vehicles, including carriages, trade wagons, stagecoaches, and sleighs.
Between 1901 and 1949 Manchester Corporation Tramways was the municipal operator of electric tram services in Manchester, England. At its peak in 1928, the organisation carried 328 million passengers on 953 trams, via 46 routes, along 292 miles (470 km) of track.
There have been two separate generations of trams in Rouen. The first generation tramway was a tram network built in Rouen, Normandy, northern France, that started service in 1877, and finally closed in 1953. There were no trams at all in Rouen between 1953 and 1994, when the modern Rouen tramway opened.
Birch Brothers was a bus and coach operator in south east England.
The Star Omnibus Company and its predecessor the Andrews Star Omnibus Company, was a bus operator in London between 1892 and 1908.
In France, the vast majority of bus services are provided by the local Autorité Organisatrice de Transports (AOT) or Transport Organising Authority. Urban Transport Organizing Authorities. This is most commonly the commune, or the département where settlements are not large enough to require their own bus services. In Paris, the RATP run bus services.
The Bayswater Omnibus is an 1895 oil painting by George William Joy. It has been part of the Museum of London's collection since 1966. The genre painting depicts a scene inside a horse-drawn omnibus of the London General Omnibus Company. Joy borrowed a bus from the company while he was working on his painting.
↑ The National Cyclopaedia of Useful Knowledge (Vol IVed.). London: Charles Knight. 1848. p.676.
↑ Vance, James E. (1986). Capturing the Horizon: Historical Geography of Transportation Since the Transportation Revolution of the Sixteenth Century. Harper & Row.
‡ indicates vehicles that were used historically in public transport services
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