Identification tag worn by a London bus conductor
during World War Two and its aftermath. Photographed in the London Transport Museum.
Every bus had a conductor as well as a driver, and it was the conductor
who sold the tickets. Most of my memories are of them
being men, but during the war they were often women because men were
away on active service. Conductors had dark navy uniforms and a peaked cap and
they wore an identification badge.
Ticket punch and takings pouch as used by bus conductors in the Second World War and its aftermath. Photographed in the London Transport Museum.
Conductors sold the tickets on the bus once it had set off, by moving up and down the passage
between the seats. Tickets were not sold in advance anywhere. Often buses were very crowded, so conductors had to
squeeze past the standing passengers. Officially only five standing
passengers were allowed on the lower deck and none on the upper deck, but
the conductors were often kind enough to allow more when the weather was cold
or raining.
The conductor collected the money in a leather pouch slung over
his neck and shoulder. There were separate slots in it for different coins,
probably for silver and copper.
A rack of bus tickets as held by bus conductors on London buses during
and just after World War Two. Note the old
money marked on the tickets: fares ranged from 1 old
penny to 7 old pennies. Also note the spring fasteners that kept the
tickets in place while enabling the conductor to remove a single one
easily for each passenger.
Photographed in the London Transport Museum.
The tickets that I best remember are from when I was a young child in the
1940s, because as I grew up, I generally preferred the
convenience of my bicycle to a bus. The tickets were on
rack which the conductor carried and they were held in place with springs as
shown in the photograph.
Front and back of a used 1940s London bus ticket showing its price and a punch hole indicating the bus stop where the passenger must get off.
Courtesy of Francis Duck.
Each denomination was of a different
colour and had various destinations printed on. Passengers told the conductor their
destination and he or she - having invariably remembered where they got on - seemed to
know immediately what the fare would be. He or she then pulled out an
appropriate ticket from the rack and punched a
hole in it. I suppose the hole must have been on the destination point, but
I can't remember ever checking.
Women bus conductors, known as clippies, during World
War Two. Courtesy of Send and Ripley History Society,
Conductors always seemed to be remarkably good at remembering who had and
had not paid - or maybe everyone was more just honest then, and just held
out their money to show that they still needed to pay. Every so often a
ticket inspector would board the bus at a
bus stop along the route and check
everyone's ticket. This was one reason why the tickets had to be kept safely
during the journey. Another reason was that buses often broke down, which I
suppose was due to the lack of availability of parts during the war. When
this happened, all the passengers had to crowd out to wait for the next bus
to come along. Then they had to show their tickets to the new conductor in
order to avoid double payment.
Some years after the war a new system came into operation. The paper was on a roll and
tickets were printed specially for each customer's
journey. The bus conductor had the machine round his neck and shoulders and
operated it with a handle. Out popped the ticket which he tore off and gave
to the passenger. With this system, tickets continued to be sold on the
buses during journeys.
