History
The first trams of the Bristol Tramways Company ran in 1875, and in 1906 the company started to operate motor buses to bring extra passengers to their trams. In 1908 the company decided to build bus chassis for its own use, the first one entering service on 12 May.
The Motor Department was initially based at the tram depot in Brislington, on the road that led east from Bristol to Bath. The Car Building Works there had been responsible for erecting electric trams and had gone on to build horse-drawn vehicles for the company. The first motor bodies built there had been three charabanc bodies constructed in 1907 for the Thornycroft buses delivered the previous year. During 1907 the bus fleet was transferred to the tram depot at Filton to the north west of the city. In 1908 the company built its first six buses. The chassis were erected by the Motor Department and three bodies each at Brislington and the company's carriage works in Leek Lane, north Bristol.
In 1910 the company decided to build aeroplanes. The best place for this work was the sheds occupied by the Motor Department at Filton, so motor repairs and construction returned to Brislington. The tram depot proved too small for the volume of work and so a new 4 acres (1.6 ha) site, to be known as the Motor Constructional Works, was purchased nearby in Kensington Hill, Brisington.
In May 1914 it supplied its first bus to another operator, a C50 fitted out as a charabanc for Imperial Tramways at Middlesbrough. The two companies shared a chairman, Sir George White, who in January had taken some buses out of service in Bristol to send to Middlesbrough when a rival company had tried to start a competitive service. The Middlesbrough order was followed by a number of trucks for the Royal Navy Air Service.
The Great Western Railway bought a controlling interest in the tramway company in 1929 but the bus interests of the railway were transferred to Western National in 1931. This brought Bristol Tramways and its manufacturing activities into the Tilling Group. Other companies in the group increasingly turned to Bristol to provide their chassis. Many Bristol chassis were taken to Eastern Coach Works (ECW) at Lowestoft, another member of the Tilling Group, where bodies were added. The un-bodied chassis were moved between the two towns by delivery drivers wearing substantial weatherproof suits.
Bristol Commercial Vehicles (BCV) was created in 1943 as a subsidiary of Bristol Tramways. The Transport Act saw the nationalisation of the Tilling Group into the British Transport Commission (BTC) in 1948. BCV and ECW soon found themselves restricted to selling products to other BTC operators. Nationalisation also brought the task of supervision of the Ministry of Supply’s motor repair works at Kingswood. In 1955 BCV became an independent company owned by the BTC. Rationalisation of activities saw new body construction cease at Bristol in 1956.
Changes in government policy in 1965 allowed the Leyland Motor Corporation to buy some shares in BCV and ECW so that their products could once again be sold to independent operators. The last new chassis to carry a Bristol badge was a VRT/SL double-deck bus built in 1981. For a while the factory continued to build buses with Leyland badges, notably the Olympian which had been designed by the staff at Brislington. All work ended in October 1983 when the final Bristol-built Olympian chassis was sent to ECW to receive its body for Devon General (where it was registered A685 KDV). Work was then transferred to other Leyland factories.
Read more about this topic: Bristol Commercial Vehicles
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