Bill Bates: motor coach proprietor and carrier

Bill Bates was born in Birmingham in 1898 and came with his family to Ventnor in 1911. His parents had taken on the Globe Hotel in the High Street and Bill became an apprentice with Martins, the local coachbuilders. Returning from the War in 1920, he started up a road carrier business, running motor lorries between Ventnor and Ryde and between Ventnor and Newport. Then, in the late 1920s, he formed a passenger coach business, eventually running a small fleet of four vehicles, initially described as charabancs, but later as motor coaches.

Bill died in 1966, aged 68, after a long illness.

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