Gosport's buses and trams An online exhibition created by The Provincial Society, with support from Hampshire County Council Arts and Museums Service  
     
 

 
 
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Legal Name: F Barter  
   
Operating Name: Perseverance
   
Started Operations: 1922
   
Finished Operations: circa 1930
   
Operating Base(s): Perseverance Garage, Hardway
   
History:  

Born in Titchfield in 1894 and educated in the village, Francis Barter joined the Royal Navy as a boy in 1909.  After being invalided out of the Service in 1914 due to poor eyesight, Barter worked in the local dockyard during the Great War and served briefly as a merchant seaman in the early 1920s.  Towards the end of 1922, the first record appears of Barter operating a Ford motor bus between Gosport Hard and Hardway - he was fined 5s and later 10s for failing to illuminate his vehicle's rear registration plate.

The size of Barter's fleet increased during the mid-1920s as he and his competitor on the Hardway and Elson route, Hezekiah Mason, consolidated their positions following Hants & Dorset's decision to withdraw from the route in 1925.  Around this time, Barter adopted the trading name 'Perseverance' and his garage in Elson Road, believed to be adjacent to his home at Bellona Villa, used the same title.

Following Barter's untimely death at the age of 34 in June 1928, his wife Margaret continued to operate a motor bus service to Hardway, Elson and Brockhurst but, by the end of the decade, the Perseverance name had transferred to George Alfred Cross in nearby Priory Road and an express service had been initiated between Gosport and London via the Meon Valley.  Although Cross sold his express service to Southdown in 1934, he continued to operate local services in Gosport until they were sold to Provincial Traction in 1949, the remainder of his business (i.e. coach hire) being acquired by Hutfield Coaches (Gosport) Ltd in 1955.

   

 

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