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Midland Red Early Days

Well done to you too, my friend (and to all other contributors). But please don't confuse my (usually) dignified self, Thylacinus cynocephalus ("dog-headed pouched one", also known as "Tassie Tiger"), with my less couth (if more common) colleague Sarcophilus harrisii ("Tassie Devil"). I am pictured below left (I won't say where!), and my esteemed colleague is seen (below centre) looking cute. The Tassie Devil of course made a world-renowned name for himself in another persona (below right). And no, I'm not jealous! :dft005:
 
No confusion: the 'devil' reference was just intentional coincidental humour (or more precisely, paronomasia). Picture 3 is actually reminiscent of myself at times, being often short-tempered with imbeciles - who also seem to have been some of my employers over the years!
 
Good morning, Lloyd, you sophisticated punster you! Paronomasia ... hmm (you live and learn!). There's a bit of "Taz" in all of us.

Are you heading to Worcester to work today? If so, give my regards to Droitwich!
 
Not today, tomorrow though. I'll pass Droitwich at about 70 MPH, motorway most of the way for me!
 
A Book by EOG!

I received tody a copy of Émile Oscar Garcke's Individual Understanding: A Layman's Approach to Practical Philosophy (London: Electrical Press Ltd, 1929). Mine is number 279 of a limited edition of 1,000 printed "for private distribution". It is inscribed to "The Hon Bertrand Russell" in what I suspect (and hope) to be the author's handwriting. There is also a signature, but it is illegible (I think I can discern a "G"). This is EOG's last book, published the year before his death (see post #609), the product of a lifetime of action and contemplation. It's hard to describe how it feels to hold this book in my hand (it's in very good condition and cost me less than £18 including postage). The icing on the cake is the dedication to Bertrand Russell, who has long been a hero of mine! The thought that this fine book once resided on Russell's bookshelf makes it such a precious thing!

I won't bore you with Garcke-isms (yet!). ;)

[Can anyone find a copy of EOG's signature? I would love to verify that the great man penned the inscription himself (rather than his private secretary!).]
 
Well done, Can't help with the signature but as Russell said "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt" and I would point out it is unlikely he would delegate the signing of such a limited edition book, especially if dedicated. You seem to have found a rare bargain and the book has found another home where it is most appreciated. Looking forward to some Philosophical postings...
 
Thanks, Aidan. Actually what I thought might be EOG's signature turns out to be the letters "FRS", i e "The Hon Bertrand Russell FRS" (Fellow of the Royal Society). So no EOG signature, but I agree it is almost certainly in the author's handwriting. It's in such good condition that I suspect Bertie never opened it! Opened the parcel, looked and remarked drily: "Ah, it's from that tramway chap!". Joking aside, I've had a bit of a browse, and it looks quite interesting. The dedication reads:

"Dedicated to the author's co-workers during fifty years of industrial activities."

That's not a bad beginning!
 
My first recollection of the new BMMO 'Wheel' logo was in 1947, I believe. I was in Form 4B at Aston grammar at the time and decided to enter for the 4th Form Art Prize, for which I did a display about the size of the old 'Panora' school photos, with side elevations of all the old Midland Red bus types I could muster (starting with a horse bus without the horse of course). Against my better judgement I thought I would copy the new logo for the title, although I never liked it, being an disciple of the flanged wheel. Anyway I won the prize, and chose Walter Allen's (then) new book "The Black Country". My mother was disappointed because it was only a paperback and couldn't have the gold-embossed school coat of arms applied to the front — just a sticker inside. I still have it, though I tore quite a few pictures out later for something or other.
Peter
 
Good to hear from you, Peter. What a lovely story, thanks for sharing it with us. It's been a bit quiet on the MRED thread lately: a lot of us have been busy with the Birmingham Steam Buses (BSB) thread, which I started because the topic was cluttering up this one quite a bit! We're making a lot of progress on BSB: for example, we've considerably extended Alec Jenson's account of William Church and the London and Birmingham Steam Carriage Company (1832-1837). I expect you've been checking it out. :cool:
 
Humorous Resources!

Not quite on topic, but we have been fairly tolerant of horse bus references on the MRED thread (and I think most Midland Red enthusiasts are interested in the more general history of public transport). Below is a delightful early 19th century cartoon depicting a primaeval "knifeboard" horse omnibus. It is taken from the title page of:
William Makepeace Thackeray, Albert Richard Smith, Gilbert Abbott à Beckett, Henry Mayhew, Horace Mayhew (1816-1872). The Comic Almanack: An Ephemeris in Jest and Earnest, Containing Merry Tales, Humorous Poetry, Quips, and Oddities. With Many Hundred Illustrations by George Cruikshank and Other Artists. First Series, 1835-1843. London: Chatto and Windus, [1843].​
This entertaining work and its companion volume are available as e-texts from the excellent archive.org website: First Series (1835-1843); Second Series (1844-1853). They are also available from Google Books, but the archive.org versions are useful for those who prefer a less cluttered and more user-friendly interface. And they are good insurance against the exercise of arbitrary power by the mighty Google. ;)

[Thanks, Aidan, for discovering these! :thumbsup:]
 
The pleasure was mine in finding them, sharing them and above all in them being appreciated.

But while you are feeling tolerant here is a world tour of horsebuse Passenger experience. There seems to be many representations of horse buses/stages in action (and wonderful they are) but little from the passengers viewpoint - if anyone finds others it would be of interest. I particularly like the rich detail and the Gladstone one (I am not sure of the story behind it but smacks of some of our recent politicians in showing off they are one of the people by being photographed on London Transport).

The last of these reminds me to replug the video of the trip down busy Market Street San Fran over a hundred years ago at https://forum.birminghamhistory.co.uk/showthread.php?t=30846


* Maurice Delondre - On the Omnibus.jpg

* Honoré Daumier - Intérieur d´un omnibus.jpg

* Alfred Morgan - An Omnibus Ride to Piccadilly Circus, Mr Gladstone Travelling with Ordinary Passengers.JPG (Sold for £476000 in 2003)

* Sunday Morning on a Fifth Avenue Omnibus.jpg is how this cam to me but I believe it is actually The Bayswater Omnibus, a painting by George William Joy.
 
And now the pièce de résistance (self-judged!) so far: Omnibus Life in London (1859) by William Maw Egley


Egley conveys the claustrophobia of the inside of an omnibus (a horse-drawn carriage which travelled along a fixed route). All levels of society, from the old country woman with her piles of baggage to the city clerk with his cane, were forced to share a small compartment. Egley painted the carriage in a coachbuilder’s yard and posed models in a makeshift ‘carriage’ made from boxes and planks in his back garden in Paddington. The Illustrated London News said ‘the stern and trying incidents’ would be ‘recognized by thousands of weary wayfarers through the streets of London.’ {From the display caption in The Tate https://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=4094 }

Egley wrote a catalogue of his pictures (now in the Victoria & Albert Museum), in which he notes down the clothing of this girl in great detail:

a fashionable dressed little girl of twelve, wearing a straw hat with feathers and ribbons, the hair in long, dark ringlets: a grey jacket, and light, striped silk dress, with a short skirt displaying her long, white trousers trimmed with needlework, and black kid boots with brilliant patent leather toes and high heels.

His description stresses the girl's needlework trousers and boots, which are 'displayed'--but only to the viewer of the painting, since the other occupants of the omnibus (including the man in the top hat, who appears to be gazing at her) would not be able to see them. As the art historian Susan Casteras has noted, Egley had a curious obsession with his wife's clothes, and particularly with her footwear, stockings and lace-trimmed trousers, worn under her petticoats. This is evident from both repeated entries in his diary (which is also in the Victoria & Albert Museum), and his catalogue of pictures, compiled in 1903 from earlier records. When painting The Talking Oak in 1856, Egley obviously took particular interest in the veiled trousers just visible at the bottom of the figure's skirt, a detail which, as Casteras has pointed out, is hardly noticeable to the modern viewer.

Egley was particularly obsessed by shiny patent leather shoes, high heels, tight shoes, and long trousers which fell across the instep. In his catalogue, his mention of such details starts with descriptions of portraits of young girls in the 1840s and is gradually transferred to paintings and drawings of his wife. He also records, in his diary, many outings to buy her footwear which sounds painfully uncomfortable--for example, Sunday, November 12, 1854:

My dear little girl went out this morning in a pair of quite new black cashmere boots with brilliant glittering enamel toes. They are very small and fit so tight that she can scarcely bend her pretty feet, but it only serves to show off the elegance of their form in a most fascinating manner and add to the grace of her walk. They looked sweetly pretty with her long brilliant white trousers (quite plain) reaching to her instep.
On other occasions he bought her boots with high military heels, and recorded that 'she said she liked to feel the straps [of the trousers] tight under her pretty feet.'

This shows aspects of Victorian sexuality which are well-known from other sources--an interest in young girls or childlike women, and a fetishistic focus on details of clothing in an age when the body was generally well covered up. It has been argued that the invention of the crinoline, which swung from side to side, revealing ankles, petticoats, and footwear, stimulated the development of foot and shoe fetishism in this period, and Egley's diary certainly seems to provide lots of supporting evidence for this hypothesis. There is also a consumerist desire to see his wife in items that he has bought for her, and an emphasis on characteristics which emphasised their newness, such as the sparkling brilliance of shoes or white trousers. What is interesting is that there is very little difference between the way he describes his wife's clothing, in his diary, and the way he describes that of the figures in his paintings, in his catalogue of works. In both cases, the descriptions are obsessively detailed and repetitive. Obviously, Egley was exceptional, but his case does raise interesting questions about the depiction of female costume in mid-nineteenth century painting, and in particular, the emphasis on the feet and legs and on sensuous materials such as silk.

In both Omnibus Life in London and Work, a young girl occupies an important role in the composition--the girl in Brown's painting is more obviously erotic to us, perhaps, with her bare neck and shoulders, but Egley's well-dressed girl is seen to have a similar function when looked at in the light of his writings. This figure is prominently placed in the foreground, where such details could be voyeuristically examined. Further crowd scenes by Frith, Ramsgate Sands and The Railway Station, also have young girls in prominent foreground positions. One lifts her skirt to expose bare legs, while the other lifts her skirt to display lace trousers and petticoat. In each case, the gesture is justified by the context--bathing in the sea and travelling in full skirts both necessitated exposure--and to our eyes these figures are innocent enough; but they may also have had a particular type of charm for male viewers of the 1850s and 1860s. There is no evidence that Frith shared Egley's peculiar predilections, but the two men were on friendly terms with one another. Once you start to look for them, these young girls can be found in a number of paintings of the Victorian crowd in this period. {from the Science Museum site https://www.fathom.com/course/10701040/session4.html } [Thought this was a fascinating bit of "social" history and also reminded me of post-476, Ed]
 
Aidan, what a remarkable collection of "omnibus interior" art; thanks for finding them and exhibiting them to us with such curatorial flair. :thumbsup: Let the person who would murmur "off topic" find and display a similar image of a Midland Red (or BET, or Midlands even) horse bus interior. These images, as you so well appreciate, are fine illustrations of the social aspect of public transport history, which for me is what it's all about (alongside my anorakian fascination with mechanical and administrative detail!). The pictures illustrate clearly how, despite the universal connotation of the word "omnibus" ("for everybody"), for many years the bus was strictly a middle class (even upper middle class) phenomenon. The "lower orders" continued to walk to work, at least until the arrival of the cheap tramways and London underground, and consequent penny and ha'penny bus fares.

What a lovely way to fill a quieter period on the MRED thread! I especially love the Gladstone picture: a curiously modern image of "the people's PM" looking po-faced and embarrassed as he sits amongst fellow passengers who a treating him with "ignore" (surely the appropriate reaction in the circumstances). Terrific picture, and well worth the money (I hope it went to a public gallery though). I remember reading somewhere about the King of Norway, who works in a modest Oslo office to which he commutes (without minders) by tram or bus, much to the quiet delight of his seriously democratic people.
 
Again, thanks for appreciating them. Hope we can find some more

I am trying to find better (ie more pixels or less compression to allow magnification) of both the Egley and the Morgan which I think would bear detailed examination. For example on the Morgan I love the detail of the passengers on the top deck of the horse bus out of the window, the oil lamp, back of the number sign and baize padding inside and particularly the notice at the front. This notice I think will be a familiar exhortation about max load and not to disturb the driver but all I can read so far is:

Line 1: .....To Carry 26 passengers, 12 inside, 14 ou(tside)....

Line 2: ......(Passeng)ers are requested to address....
Line 3: ......are in case of incidents on T(op?)..........
Line 4: ......of the servants of the Company....
Line 5: {crown symbol - why?}
 
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I doubled the size of the Morgan "Gladstone" picture and "brightened" it a little (with MS Office Picture Manager) and I have it now on my desktop. Your keener-than-mine eyesight did well to pick out the legal lettering on the back of the door (which is at the back by the way, the front is where the horse and driver would be! ;)). More pixels-per-inch would be good if it would help us pin down the wording. Not sure about the crown, as the bus would have been privately owned. But the buses (and drivers and conductors) were all licensed by the government in those days, which might be a reason. I love this picture! :cool:

Incidentally, observe the red book on the seat (lower right). This might belong to a passenger, but George Shillibeer and one or two other early London proprietors did provide books for the perusal of passengers, until they were all "boned" (half-inched, pinched, nicked, lifted, "borrowed").
 
Like you, Aidan, I'm fascinated by the level of detail in the "hyper-realistic" Morgan painting, which is in many ways better than a photograph as an historical record. It is beautifully lit, as if the artist had set up an arc light! These details I noticed amongst others: the view through the rear window of the cab with the shying horse; the glimpse of the "cad" standing on his perch; the bearded gentleman with his "Times" and Gladstone bag (a doctor perhaps, or even Gladstone's personal assistant with the PM's own bag in his lap); the baby's teething ring and her mother's basket; the boy's sailor suit and toy yacht. Everyone is preoccupied: the great man himself is perhaps meditating on the "Irish question" (or thinking about his lunch!).

Are we told the date of the picture? William Ewart Gladstone was PM four times: 1868-1874, 1880-1885, 1886 and 1892-1894. I would guess that this picture dates to the 1868-1874 term.

I haven't even started to study the other pictures yet!
 
Here's a quotation from Pino Blasone's "Trains and Trams: An Archaeology of Modernity", which remarkably mentions (and gives the dates of) four of the pictures Aidan has posted. It is taken from this website (which is of very poor quality and plagued with advertising — can anyone find a cleaner version?).
"In not few 19th century English or French pictures of omnibus interiors, a detail of mother and child was almost a stereotype. Those are the cases of Maurice Delondre, En omnibus (Musée Carnavalet, Paris; 1880); John — or Alfred? — Morgan, Gladstone in an Omnibus (Private Collection; 1885); George William Joy, The Bayswater Omnibus (Museum of London; 1895). Especially the nearly propagandistic one, dedicated to the British Liberal premier William Ewart Gladstone, such paintings are animated by some a democratic spirit too. As the derived Latin denomination denotes, the omnibus were not only horse drawn public vehicles, ancestors of our buses and trams, but also accessible 'to everyone', without that showy distinction of social classes we have seen applied to train carriages. In particular Omnibus Life in London (Tate Gallery, London; 1859), by William Maw Egley, emphasizes this promiscuous dimension of a fortuitous meeting of different people, due to the development of a modern urbanized society. At this point, the vital image of a mother and child grows not so much a mere detail, as rather a sort of familiar good wish for a civilization which was born from a troubled transformation."​
So I was wrong about the Morgan work, which dates from 1885.
 
Blasone captures it doesn't he? Great find - perhaps we should have a competition to 1) find more representations of interiors 2) special prize if they don't contain madonna & child 3) Grand prize if it is of a Birmingham vehicle
 
Thylacine - as you enjoyed it as much as me, I am sure you will appreciate this less compressed example now attaching (unfortunately it has been cropped slightly so the passenger book has gone...). I have already updated the notice wording on my earlier posting (12 inside, 12 outside plus driver and cad must have been approaching the comedic proportions of the almanac).

To add to this detail:

* The lady next to the PM seems to have a limbless (dressed) crab in her basket (though it may be a meat pie or just the lid of her basket...), she wears tight black leather gloves in a most provocative manner (been reading too many of Egley's notes...).

*On the top deck of the bus through the window is an old gent with a cloak or mac reading a single sheet Broadsheet. There is a soldier sitting next to him (can anyone identify the Reg please?) with a moustache and pill-box hat. The sheen on the Gents coat and the mac and bowler of the driver seems to indicate possibility of recent rain.

* Gladstone wears the classic Dickensian "salt & pepper" trousers and an unusual ring on the index of his right hand (I don't think it is a Claddagh Ring - though would be interesting if it was considering "the Irish question" and seems to have a Ruby).

* The bearded man is reading The Globe (sadly the date is not captured!). I agree it is unclear whether he is a normal passenger or a PM Personal Secretary/minder. He wears a watch chain in his waistcoat. I think the hat and the check trousers is a bit outrageous for political class and Doctor seems likely

* In the distance out back, appears to be a hill on which there is a square tower with pyramid roof and maybe a spire close by (would be nice to identify these). It appears to be early evening as the nearest gas lampposts appear lit but not the other carriage lamps on the road (the internal oil lamp is lit also). The carriage immediately behind the Bus has a fun "Colonel Blimp" type character in it. They appear to be driving past a Park or garden with high railings.

* You already spotted the "Cad's" coat (leather/oilskin) - was he hanging or seating off the back?

* the two older children seem to be too old for the maddonna with child, but too young for the lady in mourning black (who has silver hair and a handled cane), who I would guess is their Nanny. The boy's boat is called Prince.

Too much??
 
"To carry 26 passengers, 12 inside 14 outside" (the '4' is incomplete, lacking the smaller vertical stroke) is what I make of the notice inside the 'bus.
As many paintings are, this is a delightful capture of a moment in time now long gone, a picture telling many stories, some of which are now indecipherable to us.

The trees are in full leaf, so it is summertime although it has recently rained (and may still be drizzling sligtly). The air is damp and heavy, and the sash window in the omnibus' rear dor is dropped to allow circulation without draught. Passengers atop a passing omnibus and the conductor of our conveyance, hanging tightly on at the rear, have damp clothing suggesting this and I would suggest that Mr Gladstone, en route to an important meeting or dinner engagement took the omnibus to save getting caught in the short shower just past.
The 'doctor' by the intent look on his face is struggling to find the ideal conversational opening to the attractive lady opposite, who although obviously in mourning (the face veil more than the black hat and coat declare this) must surely be the mother of the children, still young looking despite the premature silvering of her hair. Rain must have theatened as she has brought an umbrella with her, perhaps she has taken the children for an afternoon in Regents Park, and encouraged her son to sail the 'Prince' across the Serpentine. She knows the man is watching her, and remains looking demurely away, even past Mr Gladstone (whom she must recognise) to the lady with the (thankfully) sleeping baby clutching its gnawed teething ring.
Young daughter sits in quiet contemplation, whilst son sits forward, something outside having caught his attention. Is it the fractious horse pulling the hansom, or the walrus-mustached gent asleep inside? Doubtless he will comment or question soon, and if the good 'doctor' hasn't made his opening gambit by then, his moment will be lost.
 
Great analysis, Gentlemen! And thanks for the higher-resolution image, Aidan, even if someone has "boned" the book! :D We are told that the omnibus is en route to Piccadilly Circus, so a Londoner amongst us (are you there, Peter W?) might be able to identify the setting (buildings or topography). We should also remember that the Morgan painting has a "propaganda" intent, being the artist's hommage to Mr Gladstone. So the delightful incident possibly never occurred: but the depiction surely places Alfred Morgan in the ranks of the early "spin doctors".

Opening gambit for "The Doctor": "Excuse me, Madam, but I couldn't help observing that you have an unsightly wen on your neck; now I just happen to have a scalpel in my bag, and ...".

The Doctor's bag is perhaps a "kit" or "square-mouthed" bag rather than a true "Gladstone" (which was named in honour of the great man, not for being carried by him).

[I'm greatly enjoying this artistic excursion, though Midland Red purists might be seething with rage at this point! :redface: Do we know who owns the Morgan painting now? If it is in private hands, I hope that the owner has at least loaned it to a public gallery where it can be viewed.]
 
Does that line ever work Thylacine? I detect you may need a refresher course in Potter's Antipodean (or is that Antediluvian) Academy lol

The attached caught my eye on browsing the excellent https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk

* First use of the term "Knifeboard" on 15 May 1852. Downing Street Cad: "Would any Party go Out to oblige a Lady?" - Man on upper deck retorts: "Oh you dont catch me coming out on the Knifeboard again to make room for a party of swells" (PS I don't get it - but as the lady is called Agriculture it is some sort of political comment)

* William Parragreen or Cast Iron Billy -a famous London horse bus driver, with his conductor and an early horse bus -number 568 -originally a cab driver, drove omnibuses from 1834. Note the signage on the inside of the back door with crown symbol, oil lamp etc.

* another idea for next quiz - caption this horse bus pic
 
Great pictures, Molesworth! Sorry - Aidan (cross-threading there for a moment ;)). It's fascinating to see that Punch cartoon by Leech, which the Oxford English Dictionary (second edition 1989) confirms as the first recorded use of the term "knifeboard" for longitudinal back-to-back seating on the roof of a horse bus. Observe that the man actually has "knife board" (two words) in his speech bubble: something to keep in mind when using search engines to track down these obscure historical points. The practice of "knifeboard" seating originated on London horse buses out of necessity at the time of the Great Exhibition of 1851. There was a shortage of bus hardware to cope with the inundation of tourists, and bus proprietors took to bolting a plank on its side down the centre of the roof, so that the more athletic male passengers could sit "on top" with their legs hanging over the sides. The police considered (with good reason) that climbing up on the roof was dangerous, and succeeded in convicting long-established Bayswater bus proprietor Mrs Sophia Gaywood of unsafe practice for having knifeboard seating. The feisty Mrs Gaywood wasn't having any of it! She appealed the conviction; John Wilson, respected owner of the "Favorite" bus company, gave evidence for her and she was acquitted. Strange to say, the Entreprise Générale des Omnibus de Paris introduced the rooftop seat on its buses in 1853 and called it by the grand name of "la place d'impériale" (probably a term adopted from stage coach terminology). French transport historians claim priority for the invention, but London was definitely the place, and 1851 the year. Though the Comic Almanack cartoon of c 1840 (post #912) shows that the idea was current quite some time previously.
 
"Cast Iron Billy" (wonderful picture of William Parragreen and his cad!) we've met before, though quite a while ago now (post #506). That picture comes from an excellent book:

John Thomson and Adolphe Smith. Victorian Street Life in London in Historic Photographs. London, 1877. Accessed via Google Books.
 
Yes, poor old Billy! Anyway I'm out of here! Back to the BSB classroom where the good Dr William Church is about to be revealed as the inventor of the "garden seat" double-decker nearly 50 years before it's "official" invention (by the mysterious Captain Molesworth - I kid you not!).
 
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