How A Wave Of Pirate Buses Improved Transport In London

As beautiful a city as London is, it is also one that requires straightforward help to get around, and whether you book a coach hire, a tour bus or a simple bus hire route, travelling around such a beautiful labyrinthine city becomes easier and more fun with help.

This was not always the case by any stretch of the imagination, and the problems with the service were far broader than losing your Oyster card, having to call an efficient, high-quality charter company or ensuring you had exact change.

However, change comes from challenge, and the rather unfortunate era of the so-called pirate buses helped to improve transportation not only in London but across the United Kingdom.

Rise Of The Road Pirates

London has always been a city of transportation innovation, in part due to the unique size and shape of the city and its weaving roads. 

The first buses on the streets were a horse-drawn service operated by George Shillibeer in 1829, inspired by the Paris Omnibus service at the time.

The concept spread, in part due to a lack of regulation of who can and cannot run a public transport service at the time, which led to 810 bus services running.

Whilst 600 of these were run by the London General Omnibus Company, an Anglo-French conglomerate that started to buy out everyone else, it was abject chaos.

There were no designated bus stops so passengers hailed a bus like they would a taxi, and many operators ran on the same routes, racing each other for the same fares.

Anyone could for decades set up a bus company as long as they had a conductor, a driver, a bus and a board that showed the fares. These prices could be as high as the operator wanted, as long as they were clearly shown on the bus.

This led to the reign of the pirate bus, a bus that intended to obfuscate and charge people more to get where they needed to.

How the scheme worked was by setting up a bus and painting it in the red and white of The London General Omnibus Company so that prospective passengers would get on assuming it was “The General”.

The fare table was hidden from view and written in small enough type that a passenger absent-mindedly stepped onto the bus to see it, and at that point, they were committed to the fare; the law at the time noted that getting on the bus was the start of the journey.

After this, the conductor comes around and demands double or more the standard fare, something that a poor passenger is forced to pay or risk allegations of fare dodging. The police constables at the time rarely sided with the passenger.

Once they pay, they rue the day they stepped on the pirate bus and try to avoid making the same mistake in future.

However, whilst pirate buses were a problem in London for decades, by the end of the 19th century the tide was very much turning.

The Tale Of William Saunders

In 1892, a gentleman by the name of William Saunders boarded a bus in London and, like so many at the time, was aggrieved to find he was on a pirate bus, being charged double the fare and travelling at half the speed.

However, Mr Saunders was unwilling to grin and bear the journey and instead shouted to anyone attempting to board the bus that it was a pirate and to avoid it, which infuriated the conductor.

After being asked to leave, Mr Saunders refused, given that he had paid double for his fare. This only seemed to make the conductor even angrier.

Eventually, it reached the point that during one of the bus’ many stops, they shouted for a constable, demanding that they remove him and arrest him for “interfering” with their “trade”.

This gave Mr Saunders the impetus to make an impassioned speech about how the job of the police should be to protect people from being robbed rather than the robbers, which almost caused the constable to attack him.

He ultimately relented once he was politely warned that any such attack would be referred to Scotland Yard, a referral with a lot of power behind it given that the same year this happened Mr William Saunders was elected as the Member of Parliament for Walworth.

The MP’s threat caused the constable to back off, and the remainder of the journey consisted of a screaming match between Mr Saunders MP and the driver, and no additional drivers stepping on board.

Whilst pirate buses were not truly outlawed until the 1920s, this moment was the turning point where it was clear that there was a need for change and regulation, which helped to improve the quality, quantity and variety of the entire London bus network.