London buses are red; it is a known fact from Tooting to Timbuktu. And yet, as with much of what is considered common knowledge, it isn’t entirely true. It certainly wasn’t true in the 1920s, when the state-owned London General Omnibus Company was still trying to monopolise the capital’s motor-bus operations. Beginning in 1922, there were some 220 independent private operators running ‘pirate’ bus fleets, each with their own colourful liveries, in direct competition with the LGOC.
Pirate fleets were welcomed by a public which considered the LGOC’s service inadequate. Manufacturers including Dennis and Leyland were also pleased, because they provided an opening into the London bus market which the LGOC, being affiliated with AEC, wouldn’t grant them. They operated legally but became known as pirates because of their contentious business ethics. For example, some would only run on busy routes during busy times, leaving the LGOC to pick up the less lucrative services.
One prominent pirate operator was the London Public Omnibus Company, chairman of which was one Alfred Temple Bennett. Bennett was a man of many interests – engineer, property developer, freemason, and so on. As of 1902, he was manufacturing automatic fog signals for Trinity House and he produced aircraft components during the Kaiser War.
