London Electrobus Company

The London Electrobus Company, was a bus operator that ran a fleet of electric buses in London.[1] The electrobus was the first practical battery-electric bus and a forerunner of the electric buses that are experiencing a major resurgence in the 21st century.[2]

The company, which was first registered in April 1906, started running a service of electrobuses between London's Victoria Station and Liverpool Street on 15 July 1907.[3] The clean and quiet electrobuses were popular with the travelling public.[4] The company introduced a number of innovations and it was the first double-decker bus operator to experiment with a roof on the upper deck.[5] At the peak of its success in late 1908 the company had 20 or so buses in operation[6][7] and it started to run a second bus route from Victoria to Kilburn.

However, the London Electrobus Company was beset by financial chicanery throughout its short existence.[5] By 3 January 1910 the electrobus service had ceased and the company went into liquidation amid accusations of fraud.[8] Eight of the electrobuses were sold to the Brighton, Hove and Preston United company.[9] The rest of the London electrobuses were broken up for spares. The Brighton bus company was taken over by Thomas Tilling in 1916[10] and the last electrobus in Brighton ran in April 1917. Tilling said that a lack of spare parts had forced it to stop running electrobuses.[8]