Historically, the town of Bolton was in Lancashire but, since 1974, has been part of Greater Manchester. It is a former mill town where significant textile production began in the 14th century after being kick-started by Flemish weavers. This greatly increased in the 19th century and, by the 1920s, there were over 200 cotton mills, but the industry is no more. Today, there are smaller but diverse industries. Bolton is the ancestral home of the family bakers Warburtons, which was established in 1876.
Bolton had a standard gauge horse tramway built by the corporation from 1880, eventually expanding to 14½ track miles with 48 trams and leased to a local horse bus operator, Edmund Holden & Co. Holden sold their business in 1899 to Bolton Corporation who quickly converted the routes to electric operation and expanded the system in stages up to 1924. At maximum extent, the tramway comprised 162 trams on over 32 route miles.
On 9th December 1899, the first three electric routes were opened to Tonge Moor, Great Lever and the curiously named Breightmet (derived from Old English meaning 'bright meadow'). These were new routes not previously part of the horse tram network. By 1900, the last horse trams had finished and all remaining routes had been electrified. During the early years, there was joint working with Farnworth UDC (to the SE of Bolton) and with South Lancashire Tramways but our postcard shows Bolton tram 48 decorated and ready for the opening of the joint through service to Bury on 20th May 1907. The Bury tramway system has been covered previously (see postcard).
The photographic postcard, by an unknown publisher but 'Printed in Saxony', was taken outside Shiffnall Street depot, the only tram depot at this time and close to the town centre. Several slightly different views of this scene are known.
Tram 48 was the first (of several) decorated cars in Bolton and was chosen for the 1907 opening of the service to Bury because, at the time, it was the only one of the 41-48 series still without a top cover. Later, in July 1907, it was loaned to South Lancashire Tramways (SLT) to help celebrate the opening of Leigh Town Hall. The tram was in the second batch of double-deck trams built in 1900 by The Electric Railway & Tramway Carriage Works Ltd., at Preston, on Brill 21E trucks and originally mounted with two 25hp Walker 33S motors using DK51 controllers, although these were changed later. Delivered as open-top, seating was 22 downstairs and 34 upstairs and tram 48 was top-covered by 1914, if not earlier. Livery was a reddish brown-maroon and cream.
Bolton used route letters rather than route numbers and the route to Bury, about 6 miles to the east, was "B"; not 'B' for 'Bury' but for 'Breightmet', the terminus from which the Bury extension ran. The service was operated by both Bolton and Bury cars and lasted until 24th January 1934.
Trolleybuses appeared in Bolton in December 1933 running to Leigh, via Atherton, but jointly operated with SLT - even though Bolton did not own any trolleybuses at the time. Bolton trams contributed to the service as far as the borough boundary at Four Lane Ends. In 1936, Bolton Corporation purchased four 6-wheel trolleybuses although they were painted in SLT livery. The town also maintained overhead within its boundary. Consequently, Bolton was not a trolleybus operator in the normal sense of the term. Trolleybuses never ran on a joint Bolton-Bury service. After nearly 15 years of steady decline, the Bolton Corporation tram system finally closed on 29th March 1947, but plans to replace some of the tram routes with trolleybuses never materialised, so replacement was entirely by buses. The last trolleybuses ran in Bolton in 1958, although the corporation's own four vehicles had been scrapped in 1956.
Against all the odds, one Bolton tram survives. Tram 66, a double-deck bogie car of 1901 built by The Electric Railway & Tramway Carriage Works Ltd., was rescued in 1963 and has since been rebuilt and fully restored to operating condition. In recent years it has been running on the Blackpool tramway.
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