The first buses to come into service did so slightly earlier, though – back in London. As soon as the war began, London’s buses were pressed into action.

Here is a small collection of vintage pictures that show London’s traffic with kinds of wonderful buses in the early 20th century.

A bus and a midget car in a London street, 1928

An early double decker bus on a London street, 1905

Bus at the corner of Tottenham Court Road, London

Buses and trolleybuses in Kings Cross, London, ca. 1930s

Buses in London, 1927

Crowded bus on a street, London, 1928

Hammersmith Bridge, London, 1900

Karl Sander, a former German circus performer, demostrates his novel way of advertising as he rides besides a bus in Streatham in south London, 9 August 1932

Kingsland Road, London, 1929

London Bus in autochrome, 1928

Ludgate Circus, London, 1927

On Tottenham Court Road,  1927

On Westminster Bridge, ca. 1910

Piccadilly Circus, London, 1939

Street scene at Trafalgar Square in the winter of 1915

Traffic in London, 1927

Victoria bus station in London, 1927

Buses in front of the National Gallery in London, 1927

Street traffic on London Bridge, 1927