 | |
| Type | Public |
|---|---|
| Industry | Conglomerate |
| Founded | 1895 |
| Defunct | 1996 |
| Fate | Acquired |
| Successor | Rentokil Initial |
| Headquarters | London, UK |
| Products | Transport services Television services Laundry services |
British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.
The company was founded in 1895 as British Electric Traction Company Ltd, [1] with Sir Charles Rivers Wilson as chairman and Emile Garcke as managing director. It was involved in the electrification of tramways in British towns and cities, [1] and also in Australia and New Zealand, for example in Auckland. [2] From operating trams, BET moved on to manufacturing them with the purchase of Brush Electrical Engineering Company in 1901.
The BET became the largest of the private owners of tramways in the British Isles. During its history, it gained control in England of the Metropolitan Electric and South Metropolitan systems in London, as well as systems in Barnsley, Barrow-in-Furness, Birmingham, Birmingham and Midland, Brighton and Shoreham, Cambridge, Devonport and District, Dewsbury Ossett and Soothill Nether, Dudley and Stourbridge, Gateshead, Gravesend, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Jarrow, Kidderminster and Stourport, Leamington and Warwick, Mexborough and Swinton, Middleton, Oldham Ashton and Hyde, Peterborough, Poole, the Potteries, Rossendale Valley, Sheerness, South Staffordshire, Southport, South Shields, Taunton, Tynemouth, Weston-Super-Mare, Wolverhampton District, Worcester, and Yorkshire (Woollen District).
In Wales
In Scotland
In Northern Ireland
The last BET tram ran on 4 August 1951, when the Gateshead and District Tramways Company replaced its trams with buses. [3]
In 1905 a subsidiary was formed to operate motor buses, which became increasingly important to the group as many municipalities were compulsorily acquiring company-owned tram networks in their areas.
Nationalisation of BET's electricity generation and distribution activities took place in 1947 [1] leaving BET with a portfolio of bus companies, a number of miscellaneous investments, and a cash pile. The company embarked on a programme of acquisitions, with particular emphases on transport, leisure and entertainment, printing and publishing, construction and plant hire, textile maintenance and waste management.
From 1949 until 1967 BET continued to be one of the two major bus groups in the UK, alongside the state-owned Tilling Group (owned by the British Transport Commission and from 1963 by the Transport Holding Company).
In 1956 BET acquired a 20% interest in United Transport Company, [1] the rump of the old Red & White company, increased to 100% in 1971. United Transport continued with its freight road haulage business (Bulwark Transport), and also moved into shipping, particularly containers and tank containers.
The British Transport Commission (and later the Transport Holding Company) held minority interests in many of BET's UK bus subsidiaries, and in late 1967 BET sold its UK bus interests to the Transport Holding Company, to become part of the National Bus Company.
United Transport had passenger transport and freight interests in southern Africa. BET owned and operated Jamaica Omnibus Service, a 600-bus operation in Kingston, Jamaica, until it was nationalised by the Jamaican Government in 1974.
In January 1987 BET briefly reentered the UK bus market, when United Transport formed the Bee Line Buzz Company to operate minibus services in the Manchester area, and started a similar operation in Preston called Zippy. The company was headquartered in Didcot, South Oxfordshire. However, in 1988 United sold Bee Line and Zippy to Ribble Motor Services (coincidentally once owned by BET). [4] [5]
In 1947 BET acquired a substantial minority interest in Broadcast Relay Service Ltd, trading as Rediffusion, which distributed radio and television signals though wired relay networks. [1] BET acquired a controlling interest in 1967, and the remaining 36% in 1983.
When ITV commercial television started in the UK in 1955, Rediffusion formed Associated-Rediffusion with Associated Newspapers with BET's financial backing, and won the London weekday broadcast franchise.
In the beginning, Associated Rediffusion lost money. By the end of 1956 Associated Newspapers sold 80% of its stake back to BET and Rediffusion at a severe loss. Around that same time, Associated Rediffusion struck a very favourable deal with Granada Television, the franchise holder for weekday broadcasts in the North of England. Granada was also losing money, and lacked the financial resources of BET; the deal guaranteed Granada a certain level of financial security, at the cost of Associated-Rediffusion receiving the vast majority of future profits from their arrangement.
By 1964, when Associated Rediffusion changed its name to Rediffusion London, its efforts had left it sitting on a mountain of cash. But in 1967 the Independent Television Authority ordered Rediffusion London to enter into a joint arrangement with ABC Weekend TV, the holder of the weekend Midlands and North of England franchises, to form Thames Television. As a result of this re-allocation of interests, ABC took a controlling 51% interest in Thames Television, although the profits were split 50/50 between ABC and Rediffusion. [1] Thames Television was given the new weekday London franchise. BET sold its interest in Thames Television in 1985.
Between 1955 and 1968 BET made other acquisitions in the leisure sector, including a controlling interest in Wembley Stadium Ltd, which was sold in 1985.
BET acquired the Argus Press group in 1966. [1]
BET acquired Eddison Plant Ltd in 1949, [1] and expanded into construction after the sale of its bus interests in 1968. It acquired Boulton & Paul Ltd and Grayston Ltd. [1] Murphy Bros. Limited with interests in civil engineering, opencast coal mining, building materials production and plant hire was acquired in 1968. [6] BET acquired Shifnal, Shropshire based Wrekin Construction Company Limited in 1972 and divested the business to its founder Tom Frain in 1983 for £3 million. [7]
In 1985 BET acquired the crane company G W Sparrow & Sons plc, [8] and combined its craneage interests into a new subsidiary, Grayston White and Sparrow.
BET entered the laundry business in 1934, and in 1935 acquired an interest in Advance Linen Services, which became a subsidiary in 1955. [9]
In 1950 BET took a 10% interest in Initial. [1] The stake was gradually increased until 1985, when BET took over Initial.
In 1971 BET acquired Biffa, and also acquired Re-Chem International, which specialised in toxic industrial waste processing.
In the 1980s conglomerates such as BET fell out of favour, and BET extracted itself from some business sectors. Its interests in Thames Television were sold in 1985, and the rest of Rediffusion soon followed. BET sold its 75 per cent shareholding in Humphries Holdings PLC to Lee International PLC for £2.5 million in 1985. Rediffusion Simulation was sold in 1988 to Hughes Aircraft. In 1991 Biffa was sold to Severn Trent Water plc. [10] BET also sold its construction interests.
BET retained the profitable laundry and linen rental businesses, and also the shipping businesses of United Transport.
In 1996 BET was acquired by the much smaller Rentokil, after a hostile take-over bid. [11] The merged company was named Rentokil Initial. [12]
Associated-Rediffusion, later Rediffusion, was the British ITV franchise holder for London and parts of the surrounding counties, on weekdays between 22 September 1955 and 29 July 1968. It was the first ITA franchisee to go on air.
Thames Television, commonly simplified to just Thames, was a franchise holder for a region of the British ITV television network serving London and surrounding areas from 30 July 1968 until the night of 31 December 1992. It was also a production company. Thames Television broadcast from 9:25 Monday morning to 5:15 Friday afternoon at which time it would hand over to LWT. It continued as an independent production company until 2003.
Rediffusion was a business that distributed radio and TV signals through wired relay networks. The business gave rise to a number of other companies, including Associated-Rediffusion, later known as Rediffusion London, one of the first companies to win a terrestrial ITV franchise in the UK. Rediffusion also spawned a record label, Rediffusion International Music, in 1968.
Rentokil Initial is a British business services group. It was founded in 1925 as a pest-control business but subsequently expanded and diversified, in part through organic growth under the leadership of Sir Clive Thompson in the 1980s and 1990s, and in part, through the acquisition of BET plc in 1996, into a business delivering a wide range of facilities management services. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
Oxford Bus Company is the trading name of The City of Oxford Motor Services Ltd. It is a bus operator serving the city and surrounding area of Oxford, England. It is a subsidiary of the Go-Ahead Group.
Arriva Colchester is a bus company operating services around Colchester. It is a subsidiary of Arriva. The company was, until March 2015, part of the Tellings-Golden Miller company, which was owned by Arriva at the time, under the name of Network Colchester.
Thorn EMI was a major British company involved in consumer electronics, music, defence, and retail. Created in October 1979, when Thorn Electrical Industries merged with EMI, it was listed on the London Stock Exchange and was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. But, it demerged back to separate companies in 1996.
Midland Red was a bus company that operated in The Midlands from 1905 until 1981. It was one of the largest English bus companies, operating over a large area between Gloucester in the south and Derbyshire in the north, and from Northampton to the Welsh border. The company also manufactured buses.
The National Bus Company (NBC) was a nationalised bus company that operated in England and Wales between 1969 and 1988. NBC did not run buses itself, but was the owner of a number of regional subsidiary bus operating companies.
Aldershot & District Traction Company Limited was a major bus company operating services in East Hampshire, West Surrey and parts of adjoining counties for sixty years during the 20th century, from 1912 until 1972 when it became part of Alder Valley.
The City of Birmingham Tramways Company Ltd operated trams in Birmingham, England, from 1896 until 1911.
Metropolitan Electric Tramways Limited (MET) operated electric tram services in suburban areas of Middlesex and Hertfordshire from 1904 to 1933, when its services passed to the London Passenger Transport Board.
The Rhondda Tramways Company was established in 1906 as a subsidiary of the National Electric Construction Company. The NECC was acquired, with all its subsidiary businesses, by British Electric Traction Company (BET) in 1928. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the BET was a major operator of tramways in the UK, and later became one of the biggest operators of motor buses in the UK.
The Bristol Omnibus Company was a dominant bus operator in Bristol, and was one of the oldest bus companies in the United Kingdom. It ran buses over a wide area of Gloucestershire, Somerset, Wiltshire and neighbouring counties.
Thames Valley Traction Company Limited was a major bus company operating services to and from Reading, Bracknell, Maidenhead, Newbury, High Wycombe and Oxford and surrounding areas for 52 years in the 20th century. For many years it ran the "Reading A" and "Reading B" limited-stop services between London's Victoria Coach Station and Reading via two differing sets of intermediate stops.
Red & White Services was a bus company operating in south east Wales and Gloucestershire, England between 1929 and 1978.
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.
Buses play a major role in the public transport of the United Kingdom, as well as seeing extensive private use. While rail transport has increased over the past twenty years due to road congestion, the same does not apply to buses, which have generally been used less, apart from in London where their use has increased significantly. Bus transport is heavily subsidised, with subsidy accounting for around 45 per cent of operator revenue, especially in London.
Devon General was the principal bus operator in south Devon from 1919. The name was first used by the Devon General Omnibus and Touring Company which was created in 1919. In 1922 it was purchased by the National Electric Construction Company which merged with British Electric Traction in 1931. Nationalisation in 1969 resulted in 1971 with the company being merged into Western National. In 1983 a new Devon General Limited was created which became the first operating subsidiary of the National Bus Company to be privatised in 1986 when it became the first company of Transit Holdings. It was sold to the Stagecoach Group in 1996 and renamed Stagecoach Devon in 2003.
Bath Tramways Company and its successors operated a 4 ft horse drawn tramway service in Bath between 1880 and 1902. From 1903 until its closure in 1939 an expanded route carried electric trams operated by Bath Electric Tramways Company.
History of bus transport in the United Kingdom | |
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| General | |
| Organisations | |
| Regulation | |
| London | |
| Parliamentary Acts | |
