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Bus links villages to town

I have written in recent weeks about some of the early independent bus operators who ran services in and out of Newark during the Twenties and Thirties.

 

Last time I wrote about Mr William Hoe of Newark who, in the years after the first world war, established the first motor bus services between Newark, Balderton and Farndon.

Serving the town from the north, meanwhile, were the bus services of Mr Harry Pratt and Mr Alfred Hazzard. Mr Hazzard's bus, an early Chevrolet, became the first to operate a service from Newark to Lincoln through Collingham and Swinderby, opening a route that became important to local trade.

Mr Hazzard was born in Norwell in 1895. He was the second son of Mr Thomas Hazzard, an agricultural labourer.

The Norwell parish register of January 27, 1895, shows Mr Alfred Hazzard's christening together with that of his brother, Mr Thomas hazzard, taking place on the same day.

Mr Thomas hazzard, however, was already about two at that time, and it was he who established the family's transport business.

By 1916 Mr Thomas Hazzard was listed as operating a carrier business in Norwell, and in 1921, after the family's move to Collingham, trade directories show the business was operated by the Hazzard brothers.

Their transport at this time was a horse drawn cart used for carrying passengers and village produce to be sold at market.

By 1922 Mr Thomas Hazzard had relinquished his share of the carrier business as Mr Alfred Hazzard was listed as operating in partnership with Mr Harry Pratt. In later years, Mr Thomas Hazzard worked as a crossing keeper on the Newark-Lincoln railway line.

In the early Twenties, Mr Alfred Hazzard and Mr Pratt provided the only carrier service between Collingham and Lincoln, on Fridays, and were one of only two such services from Collingham to Newark on Wednesdays and Saturdays - market days.

The other operator from Collingham at that time was Samuel Hickman. In Newark, Hazzard and Pratt's stopping point was the George and Dragon pub on Castlegate, which is now The Club.

While resting their horses for the return journey, it was not unusual for them to carry out small errands for people who lived in the village.

Traditional horsedrawn carrier carts provided a vital link between town and village in some parts of the country until the Thirties.

Entrepreneurs such as Mr Alfred Hazzard and Mr Pratt, however, were quick to spot the potential of motorised transport in terms of speed and capacity.

In 1928 Mr Hazzard married Alice Nicholson of Collingham and in the same year inaugurated his motorised carrier-bus service between Collingham, Newark and Lincoln.

Mr Pratt, who by this time was listed in trade directories as a motor engineer with a garage in Collingham, began operating a motor bus.

The registration plate of Mr Hazzard's vehicle, RR 6690, is visible in photographs, and from vehicle records it is possible to trace something of its history.

The chassis is given as a 21.9hp Chevrolet, first registered as a Hackney Carriage on May 5, 1927. At that time it was owned by Mr John Goodwin of Flintham who was operating a carrier service to Newark from that village.

The Goodwin family were listed as carriers as far back as 1876.

The Chevrolet was re-registered to Mr Alfred Hazzard of High Street, Collingham, on November 13, 1928, and, over the following two years was used to run his carrier-bus service between Collingham, Newark and Lincoln.

In May, 1930, Mr Hazzard sold the Chevrolet to Mr Randolph Cropley of Sutterton near Boston, and it was converted to a lorry and then to a private car.

As far as can be deduced, Mr Hazzard and Mr Pratt ceased running their bus services in the mid-Thirties. Both were noted as carriers in trade directories up to 1932, but had disappeared by 1936.

Mr Hazzard's routes (and possibly Pratt's) were taken over by Lincolnshire Road Car. Mr Hazzard was then a driver for Roadcar.

In his book Passenger Transport in Lincoln, Mr Peter White describes how, at around this time, Road Car acquired a number of village stage or market day bus services in the Newark area.

Among them were Mr Frederick Morton Brown's Grove Motor Company's services from Newark to Farndon, Balderton and Winthorpe, and Mr George Moyse's Long Bennington to Newark services. In 1949, Mr Hazzard became a regulator at the old Newark bus station, Beaumond Cross. He retired in 1959.

After a period of ill health he died at his Collingham home in June, 1962, at the age of 67.

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