This is not merely the story of the origins of the world’s largest urban passenger transport system: it is also, as it must be, the story of the growth of London itself from teh early days of the nineteenth century.

This volume traces the developmen down to 1900 of every kind of public transport which either produced the great expansion of London in this period, or took up the opportunities it offered. Passenger transport is related throughout to the social, economic, and historical factors which shaped its course.

This is more than a history of the founding and operation of this or that bus, railway or tram company. It is an authentic portrait of an age of prodigious energy, which, for better or worse, made London what it is and laid the foundations for today’s London Transport system.

This book was first published in 1963.