Just read a small article on this. Seems interesting, did the government just take over everything. Would love to find out more.
LASHHGV:
Just read a small article on this. Seems interesting, did the government just take over everything. Would love to find out more.
The road haulage industry bitterly opposed nationalisation, and they found allies in the Conservative Party. Once the Conservatives were elected in 1951 road haulage was soon de-nationalised and de-regulated, but the still heavily regulated railways and buses were left under the control of the British Transport Commission.
The British Transport Commission (BTC) was created by Clement Attlee’s post-war Labour government as a part of its nationalisation programme, to oversee railways, canals and road freight transport in Great Britain (Northern Ireland had the separate Ulster Transport Authority). Its general duty under the Transport Act 1947 was to provide “an efficient, adequate, economical and properly integrated system of public inland transport and port facilities within Great Britain for passengers and goods”, excluding transport by air.
The BTC came into operation on 1 January 1948. Its first chairman was Lord Hurcomb, with Miles Beevor as Chief Secretary. Its main holdings were the networks and assets of the Big Four national regional railway companies: Great Western Railway, London and North Eastern Railway, London, Midland and Scottish Railway and the Southern Railway. It also took over 55 other railway undertakings, 19 canal undertakings and 246 road haulage firms, as well as the work of the London Passenger Transport Board, which was already publicly owned. The nationalisation package also included the fleets of ‘private owner wagons’, which industrial concerns had used to transport goods on the railway networks.
As I understand it there was a lot of opposition from small hauliers to this. I remember talking to an owner driver many years later in Huddersfield he was telling me that when it happened Hanson/Holdsworth were the biggest haulage company in the Hudds/Halifax area. All the local hauliers held a protest meeting and Bob Hanson stood up and said they were going to fight it tooth and nail. The following week Hanson/Holdsworth were the first to sell up. Once they had gone there were only the smaller firms left and they had to follow suit.
This was some years after the de-nationalisation and he was still bitter about it.
I remember reading the Hanson side of it in Lord Hansons biography.It was interesting in that they didn`t lose out of it and I seem to remember did very well getting it back.
The book itself is not a bad read if you are interested in that sort of thing.
Mark.