Dodson '1907–33

Dodson was in important builder of double-decker bus bodywork in the years around 1930 and was best known for catering to the requerments of the London independent operators. Christopher Dodson founded his bodyworks at Willesden in London NW10. By 1907 he was building lorry bodies and by 1913 was building single-deck trolleybus bodies. Together with his brother, Frank, he founded Dodson Bros in 1921 as a bus operator on the Isle of Wight. Also known as Dodson & Campbell, this company later became the Vectis Bus Company and in 1929 Southern Vectis. Not surprisingly, its buses in this period all had Dodson bodies. The Dodson concern developed the Charabus single-deck design in the early 1920s, with removable side windows to convert it from closed saloon charabanc. By 1922, it was advertising double-deck bodies as well. It bodied a number of single-deck trolleybuses for Wolverhampton and built the bodywork on some prototype SMC (Sunbeam) motor-bus chassis in 1928. Characteristic of Dodson double-deck designs was a three-window arrangement at the front upper deck, intended to allow the route boards to be changed from upstairs. Dodson’s location in north London made the company an obvious and popular choise to body double-deckers for the London independent or ‘pirate’ operators of the late 1920s and early 1930s. In 1930-1, the company also bodied a number of ST-class AEC Regents for Thomas Tilling in London to that operator’s standard six-bay pattern with an outside staircase and balloon roof. A 1931 design extended the upper deck over the cab and added an enclosed staircase. However, when the London Passenger Transport Board was formed in 1933 and the London independents disappeared, so did Dodson’s market and the company closed.