George Shillibeer (August 11, 1797, St Marylebone,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
–August 21, 1866, Brighton, England) was an
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
coachbuilderA coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others included Hooper, H. J...
.
George Shillibeer was the son of Abraham and Elizabeth Shillibeer. Christened in St Marys Church, St Marylebone on 22 October, 1797, Shillibeer worked for the coach company Hatchetts in
Long AcreLong Acre is a street in central London, England. Starting from St. Martin's Lane it runs from east to west just north of Covent Garden piazza, one block north of Floral Street. The street was completed in the early 17th century. It was once known for its coach-makers, and later for its car dealers...
, the coach-building district of the capital. In the 1820s he was offered work in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
where he was commissioned to build some unusually large horse-drawn coaches of "novel design".
George Shillibeer (August 11, 1797, St Marylebone,
London[]London is the capital of England and the United Kingdom. It has been a major settlement for two millennia, and the history of London goes back to its founding by the Romans, when it was named Londinium. London's core, the ancient City of London, the 'square mile', retains its medieval boundaries...
–August 21, 1866, Brighton, England) was an
EnglishThe English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity as a people is of early medieval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn....
coachbuilderA coachbuilder is a manufacturer of bodies for carriages or automobiles.The trade dates back several centuries. Rippon was active in the time of Queen Elizabeth I, Barker founded in 1710 by an officer in Queen Anne's Guards, Brewster a relative newcomer , formed in 1810. Others included Hooper, H. J...
.
Biography
George Shillibeer was the son of Abraham and Elizabeth Shillibeer. Christened in St Marys Church, St Marylebone on 22 October, 1797, Shillibeer worked for the coach company Hatchetts in
Long AcreLong Acre is a street in central London, England. Starting from St. Martin's Lane it runs from east to west just north of Covent Garden piazza, one block north of Floral Street. The street was completed in the early 17th century. It was once known for its coach-makers, and later for its car dealers...
, the coach-building district of the capital. In the 1820s he was offered work in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
,
FranceFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
where he was commissioned to build some unusually large horse-drawn coaches of "novel design". The aim was to design a coach capable of transporting a whole group of people, perhaps two dozen, at a time.
Shillibeer's design worked, and was very stable. It was introduced into the streets of Paris in 1827. Shortly afterwards, Shillibeer built another for a private Quaker school in
Stoke NewingtonStoke Newington is a district in the London Borough of Hackney. It is north-east of Charing Cross.-Boundaries:In modern terms, Stoke Newington can be roughly defined by the N16 postcode area . Its southern boundary with Dalston is quite ill-defined too...
near London; this with a total of twenty-five seats, and which entered history as the first school bus. In 1827 Joseph Pease, a Quaker visitor to the girl's school at
Fleetwood House, Abney ParkAbney Park in Stoke Newington, north-east London, UK is a historic parkland originally laid out in the early 18th century by Lady Mary Abney and Dr. Isaac Watts, and the neighbouring Hartopp family. In 1840 it became a non-denominational garden cemetery, semi-public park arboretum, and educational...
which was supported by the Quaker scientist and philanthropist
William AllenWilliam Allen FRS, FLS was an English scientist and philanthropist who opposed slavery and engaged in schemes of social and penal improvement in early nineteenth century England.-Early life:...
, wrote in verse about the school bus:
- The straight path of Truth the dear Girls keep their feet in,
- And ah! it would do your heart good Cousin Anne,
- To see them arriving at Gracechurch Street Meeting,
- All snugly packed up, 25 in a van.
Whilst in Paris, Shillibeer concluded that operating similar vehicles in London, but for the fare-paying public with multiple stops, would be a paying enterprise, so he returned to his native city. His first London "
OmnibusA bus is a road vehicle designed to carry passengers. A bus seats a maximum of 8 to 300 passengers...
" took up service on July 4 1829 on the route between
PaddingtonPaddington is an area of the City of Westminster, in Central London, England. Formerly a metropolitan borough, it was integrated with Westminster and Greater London in 1965...
(The
Yorkshire StingoThe Yorkshire Stingo was a public house in Marylebone, London which was a significant landmark outside central London in the eighteenth and nineteenth century....
) and "Bank"
(Bank of England)The Bank of England is, despite its name, the central bank of the whole of the United Kingdom and is the model on which most modern, large central banks have been based. It was established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and to this day it still acts as the banker for the UK...
via the "New Road" (now
Marylebone RdMarylebone Road is an important thoroughfare in central London, within the City of Westminster. It runs east-west from the Euston Road at Regent's Park to the A40 Westway at Paddington...
),
Somers TownSomers Town, named after the Somers family who owned the land, is an area of London south of Camden Town. Historically, the locality known as Somers Town was the whole of the triangular space between the Hampstead, Pancras, and Euston Roads...
and
City RdOften referred to by Londoners as "The City Road", the western extremity of the road is at the Angel, Islington where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for London's first bypass, the New Road from Paddington to Islington, which was constructed...
. Four services were provided in each direction daily. This service was described in the first advertisements as being "upon the Parisian mode" and that "a person of great respectability attended his vehicle as Conductor". An account of the new service was given in the
Morning PostThe Morning Post, as the paper was named on its masthead, was a conservative daily newspaper published in London from 1772 to 1937, when it was acquired by The Daily Telegraph.- History :...
of July 7 1829:
Saturday the new vehicle, called the Omnibus, commenced running from Paddington to the City, and excited considerable notice, both from the novel form of the carriage, and the elegance with which it is fitted out. It is capable of accommodating 16 or 18 persons, all inside, and we apprehend it would be almost impossible to make it overturn, owing to the great width of the carriage. It was drawn by three beautiful bayBay is a hair coat color of horses, characterized by a reddish brown body color with a black mane, tail, ear edges, and lower legs. Bay is one of the most common coat colors in many horse breeds....
s abreast, after the French fashion. The Omnibus is a handsome machine, in the shape of a van. The width the horses occupy will render the vehicle rather inconvenient to be turned or driven through some of the streets of London.
A less successful innovation was his "Funeral Omnibus", which combined a passenger vehicle with a hearse.
George Shillibeer died in 1866 on August 21 (some sources say August 22), and is buried in the church graveyard at
ChigwellChigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...
in
EssexEssex is a county in the East of England region of the United Kingdom. The county town of Essex is Chelmsford.-History:In pre-Roman Britain the territories of Suffolk and Essex were home to the Trinovantes tribe, which had grown wealthy through intensive trade with the Roman Empire, contemporary...
.
In 1979, the 150th anniversary of the commencement of the first omnibus service in London, a memorial service was held at the Chigwell Church attended by Queen
Elizabeth, the Queen MotherElizabeth Bowes-Lyon was Queen of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions from 1936 until 1952 as the wife of King George VI. After her husband's death, she was known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, to avoid confusion with her daughter, Queen Elizabeth II...
.
Road named Shillibeer Walk in Chigwell was named after George.
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