Hanson's Buses 1947

I thought you might be interested in this postcard. I came across it when clearing a desk at West Vale Baptist Church some years ago now, the church hired the buses for their annual Sunday School Outings. The post card actually has blotting paper on the back (absorbent paper used for soaking up excess ink when writing) for those who don't know what that is. I thought this was rather novel!

Barbara McCormick

21/10/15 - 06:34

Thank you indeed Barbara for showing us such a delightful item. The coaches are of course the famous Bedford OB type - a model which provided comfort and efficiency with the very simplest of basics. Difficult to imagine nowadays that the petrol engine was of less than three litres - many a posh car of today can boast more! The gearbox was a simple and sturdy four speed affair which endeared enthusiasts with its melodious but civil howling in 1st 2nd and 3rd ratios, but subsided into almost silent smoothness in top - a peaceful and relaxing hum of which any self respecting electric trolleybus would be proud!

Chris Youhill

21/10/15 - 12:35

I think that "postcard" is an ink "blotter"! These cheap promotional items were once commonplace as your potential customers would leave them on their desks or inside registers, ledgers etc. Drug firms bombarded GP's with them. Hansons were and are an old transport dynasty around Huddersfield who did, their website tells me, once own the bus business. When it was fashionable to diversify, they diversified, starting Jet Petroleum until it got too big. Now it is fashionable to call yourselves Logistics, and they do.
You would not today, I think, promote your luxury hire fleet by picturing the equivalent of three OB's, but to have any new buses in 1947 was an achievement!

Joe

22/10/15 - 07:15

I remember Hanson's buses in Huddersfield during my time in neighbouring Halifax in the mid nineteen sixties. The firm began in 1920, and ultimately sold out to Huddersfield Corporation on 1st October 1969. Back in 1947, the Bedford OB and its haulage cousin, the O series 3 to 5 tonner, seemed to be absolutely everywhere. As a highly knowledgeable child (!) of five years of age at that time, I looked upon these Bedfords, with their screaming gearboxes, as inferior machinery in the celebrated company of Leylands, AECs, Dennises et al. Oh, the innocence of youth. As Chris Youhill testifies, the OB was a remarkable and nippy little chassis with a smooth six cylinder petrol engine. What additional cost it may have incurred in fuel it more than amply repaid in high reliability and low maintenance. With a little trepidation I would make one tiny correction to Chris's contribution. The engine had a capacity of 3.519 litres, and it delivered 72 bhp at 3000 rpm, quite a lot of power for a 29 seater at a time when many contemporary double deckers got along with an 85 bhp Gardner 5LW. I am looking through my slides with the idea of submitting an OB gallery in due course.

Roger Cox

22/10/15 - 10:58

Please Roger, absolutely no need for any trepidation - in fact I'm always more than grateful for any corrections. I can't imagine where I got the idea that the OB engine was less than three litres. Its worth mentioning that, commendable and amazing though the performance of the 29 seat coach version was, the OWB wartime bus version had even more "feathers in its cap." (my apologies to Guy Motors for borrowing their slogan). Seating up to 32 passengers, in those where there was an angled nearside seat tucked in alongside the driver and ahead of the door, these little giants were regularly of necessity grossly overloaded on intensely busy interurban routes. My own passenger experience of this is as a child passenger and observer where the five Ledgard OWBs of Yeadon (Moorfield) depot carried enormous loads to the textile and engineering mills all along the two chief routes - and vacuum brakes too !! When I say enormous just imagine 32 seats and, incredibly, twelve or more and a conductor standing. Perhaps I may these days be thought to be "over the top" in my admiration for the characterful little OWBs/OBs but I make no apology as they deserve perpetual recognition. Only in later years was I to experience the utter enthusiast joy of driving OB coaches (Duple and Plaxton bodied) on private hire and rural bus services - including the market day ascent of the very formidable Norwood Edge between Otley and Blubberhouses - and that included an alighting stop almost at the top of the mountainous hill !!

Chris Youhill

24/10/15 - 07:49

Barbara, that is a wonderful and now probably unique piece of bus ephemera. Do you still have it? I would love to see it. I was brought up in the Hanson operating area, and remember them from my childhood in the 1950's till their final demise in 1974 when the coach business was sold to the West Yorkshire PTE. I now live in the Halifax area.
Between 1946 and 1950 Hanson's purchased no less than 38 new Bedford OB coaches. Many only lasted two seasons before being sold on, some only one season, and one or two were sold the same year they were bought.
No doubt Robert Hanson could read the "playing field" and knew if he could acquire new OB's as soon as they became available in post-war Britain he could sell them on after a season or two at a profit.
Robert's son James went on to become Lord Hanson, one of Mrs Thatcher's "captains of industry"
No doubt Lord Hanson learnt much of his business acumen from his father.

Eric Bawden

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