John Croall & Sons were a Castle Terrace, Edinburgh firm of funeral undertakers and carriage hirers founded in 1850 [1] who expanded their business to include coaches, cabs and coachbuilding. In February 1897 the firm was incorporated as John Croall & Sons Limited. After 1960 ownership changed a number of times and the company was liquidated in 1992.
John Croall established his Castle Terrace, Edinburgh coaching and posting firm in 1820. His country seat was at Southfield in Liberton in the 1850s. [2]
Croall's four-in-hand coaches went to the ferry at South Queensferry and to Musselburgh races. The firm was awarded the Royal Warrant as "Postmasters in Scotland" in 1843. About 1907 they placed the first (motor) taxi-cabs on the streets of Edinburgh. [3] [4]
Caledonian Mercury, Edinburgh, Thursday, 14 June 1849 reported: "Mr John Croall, the enterprising coach-builder and coach proprietor of this city, is now manufacturing an extensive series of mail coaches for the Emperor of Russia. Each coach weighs about twenty-two hundred weight, and is intended to be drawn by six horses." Four days later the story was continued: "Three have been completed. Although fifteen feet long, they are constructed in two chief compartments, calculated to carry each only two inside passengers, besides the capacious hind-boot for the mail-bags, and a fore-basket fitted with leather aprons and glasses, holding the guard, in addition to its two passenger occupants; whilst the driver only can be said to be mounted outside, being on the box. Thus the whole occupants of the capacious Russian mail travel in the most luxurious manner, amid Elysian padding and cushions, with their faces to the horses. The exterior panels are most elaborately painted, and varnished until they shine like glass, in the Russian Imperial livery of dark green, relieved with heads of gold, size etc. and adorned only with double crowned heads of the black eagle, with the sceptre and globe in its talons, the Imperial crest and shield representing the equestrian Peter the Great".
Caledonian Mercury, Edinburgh, Thursday, June 18, 1849
The firm of Peter Croall & Sons who carried on business as coach builders at 126 George Street Edinburgh and Roxburghshire Coach Works at Kelso was dissolved on 28 May 1896. The partners had been John Croall and Robert Croall. [5]
The first directors were Robert Croall, Thomas Aitken and J. Hay Irons.
John Croall & Sons Ltd was incorporated in February 1897 to acquire and carry on the businesses of
In December 1909 John Croall & Sons Ltd purchased a controlling shareholding in the Chiswick, west London, coachbuilding firm H. J. Mulliner & Co. [6] which it held until 1959 when it disposed of it to Rolls-Royce Limited.
Coachbuilders, York Lane, Edinburgh (previously the premises of J & W Croall) [7] and Kelso but separate from John Croall & Sons [8]
They held a Warrant of Appointment with authority to use the Royal Arms, Croall & Croall, Edinburgh [9]
Partners 1915:
Croall & Croall were purchased in 1937 by Scottish Motor Traction Sales and Service Company Limited. [11]
Baron Biddulph, of Ledbury in the County of Hereford, is a title in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. It was created on 1 August 1903 for the banker and politician Michael Biddulph. He was a partner in the London banking firm of Cocks, Biddulph and Co and also sat in the House of Commons for Herefordshire as a Liberal from 1868 to 1885 and for Ross from 1885 to 1900 as a Liberal Unionist. His father Robert Biddulph had previously represented Hereford in Parliament while his younger brother Sir Robert Biddulph was Governor of Gibraltar. As of 2017 the title is held by the first Baron's great-great-grandson, the fifth Baron, who succeeded his father in 1988. In 1978 he assumed the additional surname of Maitland, which is the maiden surname of his mother, Lady Mary Helena Maitland, granddaughter of Ian Colin Maitland, 15th Earl of Lauderdale. She is a Patroness of the Royal Caledonian Ball.
H. J. Mulliner & Co. was a well-known British coachbuilder operating from Bedford Park, Chiswick, West London. The company which owned it was formed by H J Mulliner in 1897 but the business was a continuing branch of a family business founded in Northampton in the 1760s to hire out carriages. In December 1909 the controlling interest in this company passed to John Croall & Sons of Edinburgh. Croall sold that interest to Rolls-Royce in 1959.
Major Charles Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 20th Earl of Shrewsbury, 20th Earl of Waterford, 5th Earl Talbot, KCVO, styled Viscount Ingestre from 1868 to 1877, was a British peer. Unusually for a wealthy nobleman of the period, he began several businesses connected with road transport, with mixed success.
Eastern Scottish Omnibuses Ltd. was a bus and coach operator based in Edinburgh, Scotland and a subsidiary of the Scottish Bus Group. Eastern Scottish was formed in June 1985 from the main part of Scottish Omnibuses Ltd., which had itself traded as 'Eastern Scottish' since the 1960s. Following privatisation in 1990 the company traded as 'SMT' reviving the original name of the company. It operated until 1994, when it became part of GRT Bus Group plc.
Lowland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd was a bus operator in south eastern Scotland and parts of Northern England. The company was formed in 1985 and operated under the identities Lowland Scottish, Lowland and First Lowland / First SMT, until 1999 when the company's operations were combined with the operations of Midland Bluebird in a new company, First Edinburgh Ltd. As of 26 March 2017 these operations were transferred to West Coast Motors.
James Ballantyne was a Scottish solicitor, editor and publisher who worked for his friend Sir Walter Scott. His brother John Ballantyne (1774–1821) was also with the publishing firm, which is noted for the publication of the Novelist's Library (1820), and many works edited or written by Scott.
The Class 67 locomotives are a class of Bo-Bo diesel-electric locomotives that were built for the English Welsh & Scottish Railway (EWS) between 1999 and 2000 by Alstom at Meinfesa in Valencia, Spain with drive components from General Motors' Electro-Motive Division.
John Daniel Hertz, Sr. was an American businessman, thoroughbred racehorse owner and breeder, and philanthropist.
Walter Alexander Coachbuilders was a Scottish builder of bus and coach bodywork based in Falkirk. The company was formed in 1947 to continue the coachbuilding activities of W. Alexander & Sons when their bus service operation was nationalised. After several mergers and changes of ownership it now forms part of Alexander Dennis.
Xplore Dundee is a bus operator based in Dundee, Scotland, operating services mainly within Dundee City. The operator also runs a service to Edinburgh Airport. It is a subsidiary of McGill’s Buses, which is based in Greenock, Scotland.
Thrupp & Maberly was a British coachbuilding business based in the West End of London, England. Coach-makers to Queen Victoria they operated for more than two centuries until 1967 when they closed while in the ownership of Rootes Group.
A mail coach is a stagecoach that is used to deliver mail. In Great Britain, Ireland, and Australia, they were built to a General Post Office-approved design operated by an independent contractor to carry long-distance mail for the Post Office. Mail was held in a box at the rear where the only Royal Mail employee, an armed guard, stood. Passengers were taken at a premium fare. There was seating for four passengers inside and more outside with the driver. The guard's seat could not be shared. This distribution system began in Britain in 1784. In Ireland the same service began in 1789, and in Australia it began in 1828.
Scottish Motor Traction (SMT) was founded in Edinburgh in 1905 by William Johnston Thomson. It operated buses in much of central Scotland. Aside from its traditional bus operations, it operated an air taxi service with a De Havilland Fox Moth between 18 July and 31 October 1932 and for many years owned Dryburgh Abbey Hotel. Following legislation, which allowed railway companies to invest in bus operators, the London & North Eastern Railway and London, Midland & Scottish Railway took a major stake in SMT in 1929. In 1930, following the takeover of another operator, SMT started its Edinburgh to London express coach service. SMT also acquired control of Walter Alexander & Sons bus services and coachbuilding operations, the Alexander family joining the SMT board.
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.
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Mulliners Limited of Birmingham was a British coachbuilding business in Bordesley Green, with factories in Bordesley Green and Cherrywood Roads. It made standard bodies for specialist car manufacturers. In the 19th century there were family ties with founders Mulliners of Northampton and the businesses of other Mulliner brothers and cousins but it became a quite separate business belonging to Herbert Mulliner.
Birch Brothers was a bus and coach operator in south east England.
Arthur Mulliner was the 20th century name of a coachbuilding business founded in Northampton in 1760 which remained in family ownership. The business was acquired by Henlys Limited in 1940 and lost its separate identity.
Duncan & Fraser Limited was a vehicle manufacturing company founded in 1865 in Adelaide, South Australia that built horse-drawn carriages and horse trams, and subsequently bodies for trains, electric trams and motor cars, becoming one of the largest carriage building companies in Australia.
Borders Buses operates both local and regional bus services in the City of Edinburgh, East Lothian, Midlothian and Scottish Borders, Scotland, as well as Cumbria and Northumberland, England. It is a subsidiary of West Coast Motors.
