The Morris Viceroy was one of the more standard of the small buses acquired by London Transport.
Certainly they were good-looking and stylish buses, with a useful twenty-seater capacity.
East Surrey
London General (I think) acquired a demonstrator, with a very Midland Red Bearwood HA registration,
and put it to work with East Surrey. Eventually it became MS2.
In early summer 1931 East Surrey needed a dozen one-man buses for Darenth and Woking area routes,
where they had taken over from the Darenth Bus Company and from Woking & District.
They acquired a half-dozen Viceroy twenty-seaters and a half-dozen Commer Invader eighteen-seaters.
Some of these were initially owned by the General, for East Surrey to operate,
while others were East Surrey owned.
At the same time two Harrington-bodied Viceroy coaches were bought for private hire operations.
Ownership was presently straightened out, with the buses all being bought by East Surrey, then London General Services,
before the takeover by London Transport in July 1933. The two coaches went into Green-Line ownership before LPTB took over.
London Transport
London Transport put the two coaches into its private hire fleet, at Brixton and Old Kent Road.
It acquired two more buses as well, one from Lewis of Watford, and one from Grey of Longfield.
They went into Country Area livery of green with a black waist-band, black trims and silver grey roofs.
In 1935 they were numbered MS1-9, and received two-tone green livery.
The Private Hire Coaches, later MS10 and MS11 received large "London Transport" and small "Green Line" fleetnames,
operating from the Brixton Private Hire and Old Kent Road garages until 1938.
The buses were gathered together in 1936 and sent to Amersham (apart from MS3, which was sold).
At Amersham they took over the small bus work from a motley collection of small Dennises.
They stayed there until October 1937, when they were ousted by
Leyland Cubs and went into store, pending sale.
They were not worn out, but the arrival of 10T10 Regals had prompted the replacement of small-saloon routes with larger buses,
pushing the Cubs down the chain.
As yet I have not found out where most of the Viceroys went after sale.
Other Morris Buses
London Transport also acquired a number of other small Morris buses
by takeover of the independent operators in the Windsor and Slough areas.
There was a collection of tiny fourteen seaters, with a scattering of good-looking twenty seaters among them.
Most had a repaint into green and black, and brief service, still in the Windsor and Slough area,
but all had been withdrawn by mid 1936.
One larger Morris, a twenty-six seater Dictator, was taken over in Romford with Blane's Imperial Bus Service,
in November 1934. It was numbered M50 for the Central Area, but was never used.
Ian's Bus Stop
MS main text.
MS histories
MS photo refs
Cubs
