The Philip Gallop Collection
The images in this collection are published in memory of Philip Gallop.
Early 20th Century
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Mid 20th Century
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The "Dundry Pioneer"
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In 1923 three brothers and their sister bought a
14-seater Ford bus. They started a service that was to become a legend
ferrying passengers between Prince Street in Bristol and the village of
Dundry on top of the hill overlooking south Bristol.
Thomas, Frank, Agnes and Stephen Ball operated that service for 27 years
undercutting competition that came along and keeping to timetable so
strictly that locals set their watches by the arrival of the bus.
Working people in the Bedminster area caught the bus home for lunch and
in its heyday it made 11 journeys a day into the city. Agnes, or Aggie
as she was known, was conductress with Stephen or 'stivvie' often the
driver. Neither war nor bad weather stopped the journeys.
Many different buses were used, painted in their familiar brown and
cream livery, and it became an institution in the south of the city
linking country folk to the bustling heart of Bristol. When buses were
nationalised in 1950 the Dundry Pioneer was laid to rest and 1,000
passengers used the service on the last day.
From the Evening Post, April 1950
"A pioneer dies in the dusk of this April day, and might appropriately and ceremoniously be buried at Storm Point Bend with a coffin nail through the independent heart of it. For ghosts will walk! Storm Point Bend looks down from Dundry Hill upon a city which, through centuries of individualist enterprise, has fought its way to greatness. And the people of the little hill-top village of Dundry have themselves been as sturdily jealous and defiant as the city upon which they have for centuries looked down. But tonight, both city and village will lose a symbol of their freedom, a relic of the intangible quality of private endeavour, that has given initiative, progress and friendly sentiment to their corporate lives. The people will no doubt miss the service and friendly intimacy of a family concern, but their lives must toe the line of progress. The least we can say for the benefit of recorded history, is that whatever the future may hold, the Dundry Pioneer has fought a good fight."