London Transport Museum

The bus is London’s oldest form of public transport. The coachbuilder George Shillibeer began his service from Paddington to Bank in 1829, but unlike the long-established stage coach services, passengers did not need to book in advance and could hail the vehicle at any point on the route. Shillibeer called his service Omnibus (meaning ‘for all’ in Latin), though it was not affordable to most working people at the time. He gave us the abbreviation ‘bus’, now an internationally recognised term.