The Tilling Group was one of two conglomerates that controlled almost all of the major bus operators in the United Kingdom between World Wars I and II and until nationalisation in 1948.
Tilling, together with the other conglomerate, British Electric Traction (BET), became the main constituents of the country's nationalised bus industry in the late 1960s and was sufficiently well known to have entered popular culture as part of London's Cockney rhyming slang (Thomas Tilling = shilling).
The company continued as an industrial conglomerate after nationalisation of its bus interests; it was acquired by BTR plc in 1983.
Origins
The company traces its origins to 1846, when Thomas Tilling started in business. Tilling was born in 1825 at Gutter's Hedge Farm, Hendon, Middlesex, of parents who had moved there from Gloucestershire. In 1846, at the age of 21, he went into the transport business in London as a jobmaster in Walworth using a horse and carriage which cost him £30.
In January 1850, he purchased a horse bus together with the right to run four journeys a day between Peckham and Oxford Street. This bus he drove himself, and at the time had only one employee, a conductor named Joseph Eagle, who stayed with the firm until the end of his working life, well into the 1890s.
By 1856, Tilling owned 70 horses, which he used for bus and general carriage work. When the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was formed in 1866, Tilling was contracted to train and supply horses to haul the fire engines; the horses were trained to respond quickly and, prior to handover to the fire brigade, were employed on bus services (primarily the Peckham route) to gain experience with heavy traffic. Tilling soon became the biggest supplier of horsepower and vehicles in London, with a stable of 4,000 horses by the time of his death in 1893. Tilling is buried at Nunhead Cemetery, south London.
Tilling's horse buses stopped at predetermined points and ran to a fixed timetable, making them more punctual and orderly than the other operators' buses. This was one of the reasons for his success with customers. Because his buses operated on time, they earned the nickname of "Times" buses, and this became the fleet name painted on the side.
Early history
The business passed to Tilling's sons, Richard and Edward, who, with Thomas's son-in-law Walter Wolsey, formed a limited company, Thomas Tilling Ltd, in 1897. In addition to bus work, the company hired carriages to individuals and to a range of public utilities.
The company put three Milnes-Daimler motor buses into service in 1904. These were open top double-deckers with 16 inside seats and 18 "outside" on the upper deck. These were the first double-decker motorbuses built for public service in London. By 1905, Tilling had 20 motor buses but still owned 7,000 horses, kept in 500 stables. The horses worked the company's 250 horsebuses were hired to companies and individuals for hauling goods vehicles, cabs, and carriages. In 1907, Tilling began the first long-distance motor bus service, running 13 buses between Oxford Circus and Sidcup in Kent.
In 1909, Tilling entered into an agreement with the London General Omnibus Company (LGOC), which pooled their resources (and allowed Tilling to remain independent when LGOC led an amalgamation of most of London's bus companies), but which restricted their expansion in the capital. Then, LGOC and Tilling co-operated on a joint route from Peckham to Turnham Green, via Oxford Circus. The LGOC had introduced numbers on all its routes, and this was route number 12. This service between Peckham and Oxford Circus still operates and is still the number 12. It may be the oldest operating bus route in London. In 1915, the first woman bus conductor in London worked on Tilling route number 37. During World War I, women were recruited to replace men who had joined the Armed Forces.
In 1911, Tilling introduced the Tilling-Stevens TTA1 petrol-electric bus into its fleet; despite some drawbacks of the technology, this type formed the mainstay of the fleet for some years. In 1914, just before the outbreak of World War I, the last horse-bus operated on the Tilling Honor Oak – Peckham Rye Station route, after which the horses were requisitioned for war work.
National expansion
Starting in 1914, with the LGOC dominant in London, the company looked to the rest of Britain outside London for growth. Tilling started to seek new markets in the provinces. The company began operating in Folkestone in 1914, Brighton in 1916, and Ipswich in 1919.