ALL OUR YESTERDAYS THE EARLY ELECTRIC LONDON CAB


Road traffic ac- cording to gov- ernment data at the start of the pan- demic had plum- meted to levels not seen since 1955. Air pollution has signifi- cantly dropped, deaths from road accidents have also fallen with rail and tube passengers down by 90%. Now that people are get- ting back to work (the lucky ones) there is an increase of road traffic, cer- tainly on motor- ways but also in towns and cities. According to the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) there has been a sustained growth in 2020 for the elec- tric car market. The Toyota Prius is a favourite for the taxi and private hire market. There are literally thousands of these vehicles on most streets in every major city of the world. Sir George Sitwell born January 1860, died July 1943, was


THE


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a Member of Parlia- ment for Scar- borough. In 1897 he was invited by Scar- borough cabbies to a dinner where he surprisingly made a speech informing them: “For years to come, you have lit- tle to fear from the invention of the motor car, but in ten years, perhaps elec- tric cab’s will be in use?” Six months later, in August 1897 a number of Bersey electric cabs left the depot of the Lon- don Electric Cab Company, in Juxon Street, Lambeth. Walter Charles Ber- sey, a British elec- trical engineer dev- eloped an electric driven vehicle in the late 19th Century. The Bersey cab was nicknamed “The Humming Bird” and they were hand painted yellow and black, giving them a distinctive appear- ance. Power was supplied by a bank of forty grid plate batteries and were hung underneath the chassis on


springs. You could control the speed by means of a lever that gave you three options; three or seven or nine mph. Braking was a foot pedal that discon- nected the electric drive circuit. The vehicle weighed two tonnes and could carry two passengers with an approximate range on full charge of thirty five miles.


These electric cabs were the forerun- ners of the ones we have today. Mr Bersey, don’t forget who was only aged 22 at the time, said the advantages of his invention were: no smell, no noise,


no vibration and they do not frighten horses, remember- ing that at this time horse drawn cabs were still the most popular form of transporting cus- tomers. In 1896, the Bersey


cab was exhibited at a motor show in south Kensington, this is where Sir George Sitwell had his first introduction to this new form of transport. Although the Metro- politan Police Com- missioner approved these vehicles, in the spring of 1898, the original 24 cabs were replaced by an updated version, which had a maxi- mum speed of 12 mph. The high cost of replacement batter- ies and other prob- lems, meant the London Electric Cab Company incurred losses of £6,000 in its first year and the company ceased trading in August 1899. It’s a shame we had to wait so long for the electric cab to be produced again.


Ian Hall, Chairman Southampton Hackney and Private Hire Association (SHPHA) Southampton hackney and private hire drivers in our city www.southamptontaxis.org


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