Oxford Transport Strategy: High Street, 1905
Before 1913, the only form of public transport within the city of Oxford was the horse-drawn tram (shown in the centre of the road in 1905 in the postcard above). The cartoon below is taken from a postcard entitled "A bit of Old Oxford", posted in November 1903: the sender wrote on the back, "I am sending you this to show you how they take the policemen off when they go off duty, how they fill up the trams."
The people of Oxford dreamed of motor-buses, but the corporation considered these vehicles too dangerous and dirty, preferring the cleaner electric tram. The University, needless to say, wanted no change, but considered particularly unthinkable the prospect of overhead power lines in the High.
The postcard above, published by Davis’s of 2 Cornmarket Street, can be dated precisely to 1905, when the Corporation was proposing to take over the (horse) Tramways Company and to introduce electric trams. The University is showing its horror: the don on the left, Dr James Bright (Master of University College) is saying "Johnnie, I shall have to build another bridge", referring to (1) Magdalen Bridge, which had already been widened in 1899 by the Oxford Local Board to accommodate horse-drawn trams, and (2) the smaller bridge that his college had just built to link the Durham Building to the older parts of the college across Logic Lane.
The tram is packed with members of Oxford Corporation: the gentleman second from the left is probably Alderman Walter Gray, leader of the Conservative group, and top right at the head of the stairs Alderman Robert Buckell, leader of the Liberal group.
In the event, however, escalating costs meant that the electric trams never materialized. William Morris (later Lord Nuffield) dramatically broke through the impasse when he brought a dozen motor buses from London overnight in November 1913; the Oxford Motor Omnibus Company was formed; and buses are still dominating the High today. The picture link below probably dates from the 1920s, and shows an early motorbus.
Alfred D Godley (1856-1925), Public Orator at the University of Oxford from 1910 to 1920, wrote the following poem, in which the word "Bus" is treated as a Latin second declension noun, and appears in all ten of its possible case variations (dative and ablative being the same):
MOTOR BUS
What is this that roareth thus?
Can it be a Motor Bus?
Yes, the smell and hideous hum
Indicat Motorem Bum!
Implet in the Corn and High
Terror me Motoris Bi:
Bo Motori clamitabo
Ne Motore caedar a Bo –
Dative be or Ablative
So thou only let us live:
Whither shall thy victims flee?
Spare us, spare us, Motor Be!
Thus I sang; and still anigh
Came in hordes Motores Bi,
Et complebat omne forum
Copia Motorum Borum.
How shall wretches live like us
Cincti Bis Motoribus?
Domine, defende nos
Contra hos Motores Bos!
With thanks to Dr Malcolm Graham, Head of Oxfordshire Studies, for additional information