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JOHN NEVIL MASKELYNE: THE TICKET PUNCH MAN

  
     
 

Saturday 18 October 2004 saw the 75th anniversary of the Cheltenham District Traction Company. The occasion was marked by vintage Public Service Vehicles replacing modern Stagecoach buses. The classic buses worked several routes – including the 94 through Churchdown to Cheltenham and were driven and conducted by volunteers. Pictured opposite the Hare & Hounds, Churchdown is Bristol Low Height double-decker bus 802 MHW, introduced brand new to the Cheltenham District fleet on 1 November 1961. Combining a Lowestoft-built 60 seat Eastern Counties body with a Bristol FSF6G chassis, it is powered by a Gardner 6LW 8.4 litre diesel engine through a crash gearbox. Fairly unusually,too, 802 MHW still retains its original air suspension.

  
     
  Saturday 18 October 2004 saw the 75th anniversary of the Cheltenham District Traction Company. The occasion was marked by vintage Public Service Vehicles replacing modern Stagecoach buses. The classic buses worked several routes – including the 94 through Churchdown to Cheltenham and were driven and conducted by volunteers. Pictured opposite the Hare & Hounds, Churchdown is Bristol Low Height double-decker bus 802 MHW, introduced brand new to the Cheltenham District fleet on 1 November 1961. Combining a Lowestoft-built 60 seat Eastern Counties body with a Bristol FSF6G chassis, it is powered by a Gardner 6LW 8.4 litre diesel engine through a crash gearbox. Fairly unusually,too, 802 MHW still retains its original air suspension.  
     
  Among the famous sons of Cheltenham are Arthur Inglis, Sir Frederick Handley-Page, Sir Arthur Harris and Sir Robert Scott's Antarctic companion Edward Wilson. However, less well known is the inventor of the bus conductor's ticket punch - John Nevil Maskelyne.

In fact Mr Maskelyne can also lay claim to developing typewriters, film projection, and all manner of stage props - the latter not surprising perhaps as he was also the foremost stage illusionist of the Victorian era, a founder of the Magic Circle and a debunker of spiritualism.

Indeed, his coin operated mechanical tableaux were to lead to another revolutionary everyday invention - the penny toilet lock.

Following the Great Stink of 1958 - when the smell from the polluted River Thames was so great that Queen Victoria had to open Parliament with her nose buried in a bouquet of flowers - priority was given to building a new sewerage system for London. At the same time, entrepreneurs were encouraged to build new public toilets - known at the time as halting stations. One such halting station was built outside the Royal Exchange and the owners approached Maskelyne to design a device that would enable them to charge users for the privilige. The resultant penny-powered cubicle lock was mass produced and installed all over the British Empire - most notably in railway and bus stations. It was also the origin of the euphemism "to spend a penny".