Although most of these buses were used in Manchester, a few were to be found in London. From the earliest to the later models they all had many similarities in their design. The prominent features are that they were nearly always drawn by three horses abreast and most had seven windows each side. I have photos of them with six and eight and one very long one with ten windows each side. The other main features to be seen are the bobbins used on the suspension. These are steel rings about 5 ins. diameter lined with thick rubber. On the front they connect the side springs to a cross-spring and at the back they connect the rear of the spring to an intricate spring support. Another prominent item often used was a Y shaped bracket that the brake block arms pivot on.

Reference books nearly always use a picture of a London horse bus to illustrate horse bus transport, but when looking through books of old photographs of various towns you find that many had their own style. So far I have pictures of three-abreast buses in Manchester, London, Leeds, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Waterlooville near Portsmouth and some, very similar to the Manchester type, in Paris.

Editors note: Patrick Field would be interested to hear of any other vehicles that used the suspension bobbins. He has found them illustrated in the catalogue of Joseph Richards of Birmingham but has never seen them on any other vehicle.

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