The London Transport Museum plans to mark the Centenary of the outbreak of the First World War by collecting stories about wartime bus drivers.
The museum has made an appeal for family stories, photographs and memorabilia about buses during the conflict, including about those who drove them and who were involved with their running, such as “conductorettes”.
The London Transport Museum is aiming “to honour the unique contribution of hundreds of London bus drivers that went to the Western front with their buses”.
They played a central role in supporting the allied armies – moving troops, delivering supplies to the front and taking the wounded to safety. The bus crews, many of whom were volunteers, were recruited into the Army Service Corps, serving under difficult conditions and with the crews often living and sleeping in their vehicles.
By October 1914 over 300 buses from London’s bus companies had been pressed into military service; by the end of the war over 1,200 buses were in use on the front.
If you have a story you would like to share, you can submit it via the London Transport Museum website here.
If you have any mementoes, medals, letters, diaries or other memorabilia that you would like to share with the museum, you can contact the London Transport Museum’s Curatorial Team at collections@ltmuseum.co.uk.
Source: London Transport Museum website
Images courtesy of the London Transport Museum
Posted by: Daniel Barry, Cetenary News