Hants & Dorset
Preserved Bristol Lodekka in November 2008
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| Parent |
Southern Railway (1929-48) British Automobile Traction (1929-48) Tilling Group (1929-42) British Associated Transport (1948-62) Transport Holding Company (1963-68) National Bus Company (1969-83) |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1920 |
| Ceased operation | 1983 |
| Service area |
Bournemouth Fareham Lymington Poole Southampton Winchester |
| Service type | Bus operator |
| Depots | 14 |
Hants & Dorset Motor Services was a stage carriage bus service operator in southern England, between 1920 and 1983.
In 1916, the British Automobile Traction Company and others formed the Bournemouth & District Motor Services Limited. Following the purchase of Trade Cars of Southampton in 1920, the Hants & Dorset name was adopted. In that same year, the Tilling Group bought an interest in the company and from that year till 1929 Hants & Dorset grow rapidly.
In 1929, the Southern Railway took up its option to buy shares, under the terms of the Road & Rail Transport Act 1928, when the four railway companies were able to invest in bus operators.
By the late 1920s and early 1930s, the network of Hants & Dorset bus services was largely complete. Hants & Dorset operated buses in Bournemouth, Poole, Southampton, Lymington, Fareham and Winchester. Hants & Dorset replaced the trams operated by Poole Corporation in 1934.
The Southern Railway's half-share in Hants & Dorset passed to the government-owned Transport Holding Company (THC) when the railway company was nationalised in 1948. British Automobile Traction sold its shares to the Tilling Group in 1942, who in turn sold out to British Associated Transport in 1949, and thus Hants & Dorset became 100% government owned.
The THC's successor inspired a reorganisation in 1964 that saw Hants & Dorset and northern neighbour Wilts & Dorset fall under common management, at Hants & Dorset’s head office in Bournemouth.
A year earlier, Wilts & Dorset had taken over a large independent, Silver Star of Porton Down'. As part of the THC’s early rationalisation, Wilts & Dorset had previously, in 1950, taken over the Basingstoke operator Venture, which had passed to the Red & White group five years earlier and which, following Red & White’s voluntary nationalisation, had in turn passed to the THC.
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