November 2025

This item from the archive first appeared in the Railway Gazette in May 1928 – not an immediately obvious source for material relating to bus services. It is an advertisement for the bodybuilding firm of Strachan and Brown, and features a coach supplied to the Great Western Railway. The GWR was one of the founders of bus services in the Trust area, beginning with a service from Helston to the Lizard in 1903.

Although the registration number of the coach is not visible, it appears to be one of 12 Maudslay ML3 vehicles fitted with a B32D body by Strachan and Brown in early 1928, having fleet numbers 1501 – 1512 (registered YV1101 - 6 and YV8565 - 70). When the railways acquired large shareholdings in the National Omnibus & Transport Company, 7 of these became Western National vehicles. (1502 – 1505; 1507; 1509 – 1510).

The advertisement is one of many collected by Strachan and Brown in a – somewhat frail - album held in the archive, showing bodywork built by them and their successors from 1927 onwards. The firm originated as W E Brown in West London, who built his first vehicle body in 1890, becoming Brown and Hughes in 1904, who bodied some of the earliest buses to operate in the South Hams area of Devon. In 1907, when J M Strachan joined the firm, it became Brown, Hughes and Strachan. It was reformed in 1915 as Strachan and Brown, who supplied both the GWR and the National Omnibus and Transport Co with bodywork through the 1920s. The partnership was formally dissolved in November 1928), but Strachans continued to supply Western National and Western National with bodywork through the 1930s.


S&B/PUB/001
Archive Item of the Month, Nov 2025