Parent National Bus Company Founded 1929 | Service type Bus operator | |
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Service area Bedfordshire
Buckinghamshire
Essex
Hertfordshire
Huntingdonshire | ||
Eastern National was a bus company operating in south east England from 1929 to the 1990s.
Contents
Early history
Eastern National Omnibus Company commenced operating in 1929 as a joint venture between the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the National Omnibus & Transport Company. The National company had originated in 1909 as the National Steam Car Company, operating steam bus services in London. The London services ceased in 1919, when the company was renamed National Omnibus & Transport Company. The company expanded outside London, first in Essex (1913), where the company bought the bus operations of the Great Eastern Railway around Chelmsford, and later in Bedfordshire (1919), Gloucestershire (1919), Somerset (1920), Dorset (1921), and Devon and Cornwall (1927). The National continued to expand in Essex, Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
The railways developed networks of feeder bus services in the 1920s, but the legal powers of the railway companies (after 1922 the Big Four) to run bus services were unclear and each promoted private legislation (the Road Powers Acts of 1928) to obtain clarity. One result was that the railways were in future to refrain from taking a controlling interest in bus undertakings. This led the companies to enter into partnerships with the bus companies, including the National. In 1929 the London and North Eastern Railway, the London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the National formed Eastern National Omnibus Company, to which all three shareholders transferred their bus operations in Essex, Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Bedfordshire and Huntingdonshire.
In 1931, a controlling interest in the National Omnibus was acquired by the Tilling Group. From then on Eastern National was run as a Tilling company, although the railways retained their shares until 1948.
Nationalisation
In 1948 the railways were nationalised, and shortly after, the Tilling Group sold its bus interests to the government. Eastern National therefore became a state-owned company, under the control of the British Transport Commission.
The new regime resulted in rationalisation of the company's area of operations. In 1952 the company's operations in Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, North Hertfordshire and Huntingdonshire were transferred to United Counties, and also in 1952 control of Westcliff Motor Services was transferred to Eastern National.
On 1 January 1963, Eastern National was included in the transfer of the British Transport Commission's transport assets to the state-owned Transport Holding Company, which in turn passed to the state-owned National Bus Company on 1 January 1969.
In 1964 it advertised the following Express Services:-
Privatisation
As part of the privatisation of the National Bus Company, Eastern National was sold to in a management buyout. In 1990, Eastern National passed to Badgerline.
Badgerline divided the company into two: Thamesway Buses in the south of Essex and Eastern National in the north. Eastern National was included in the June 1995 merger of Badgerline with GRT Group to form FirstBus. FirstBus combined the two operations and renamed the company First Essex.