General coach building was the initial purpose of Mr Burlingham's business and the first body constructed was a van for a local butcher[1] but coach bodies were soon the company's main product, initially of the 'all weather' style common at the time which comprised a steel-reinforced wooden frame panelled in aluminium with windows capable of winding fully down and a full-length folding canvas roof.
[1] Output in these early years kept outgrowing factory space, and in 1929 the original sites were relinquished in favour of a workshop in Bank Road, Marton, which was used until 1931.
In 1930 Herbert Victor Burlingham, who had been a sole trader, decided to sell the business to two local businessmen, Richard Eaves and Harry Lowcock.
Styles were developed into the era of the saloon coach often now fully enclosed, windows only dropping to half depth and a sliding aluminium or folding canvas roof section optional.
[4] Among the more radical coaches of the time was a 25-seater on a normal-control Leyland Cub chassis for Marshall of Blackpool, which had a streamlined near-full width bonnet with concealed radiator, similar in shape to the Chrysler Airflow car.
[5] Among trademark Burlingham features however were ornate shaped window frames and the use of decorative stained glass work, often used when toilet compartments were fitted to coaches but also used to illuminate the stairwells of the pre-war Blackpool centre-entrance double-deckers.
From 1937 to 1938 a revised coach style began to evolve with no canopy over the bonnet of half cabs and a near semi-circular window to the sliding forward entry door with the main applied decoration a slim curved side-flash, the whole coach curving gracefully in the idiom of the post-1936 Duple design, but being distinctively Burlingham in its sharper details, and especially in its rear aspect which was v-shaped in plan about the centre-line of the divided rear window.
This was adapted to suit normal control chassis such as the Austin K4 and even used in a centre-entrance version on the Maudslay SF40 but, like the contemporary Duple style it was to become better known after World War Two.
As well as this work the Newhouse Road workshop built mobile canteens on Austin chassis for the armed forces and produced a limited number of utility-design bodies for half-cab single-deckers.
The double-decker was basically the Ribble-type pre-war outline, whilst the single-decker could be best described as the utility frame re-clothed with traditional refinements such as compound curvature on front and rear domes and outswept skirt panels.
Output of all three types was large, with many operators, such as Ribble and Walter Alexander, not only buying new chassis (for which a substantial waiting list had built up) but also sending pre-war vehicles to Burlingham for new bodies.
[7] Incidentally, SMT took Ribble-style double-deck bodies from Burlingham on 20 AEC Regent III chassis in 1950, which incorporated Ribble's post-war style of destination and number-blind glazing, to an irregular hexagonal outline – basically a triangle with the corners chopped off.
These were, though wider, similar to the final pre-war examples of the style in having powered sliding entrance doors and concealed radiators but omitting the stained glass illumination of the stairwell.
In 1950, a batch of Leyland Tiger LOPS4/3s went to the operator of the Cordoba-Roasario-Buenos Aires express service in Argentina; these showed only a few Burlingham details in their fully fronted straight-waisted coachwork.
[11] Metal framing was to be a major facet of Burlingham's new range of bodies for the new underfloor-engined single-deckers such as the Royal Tiger and the AEC Regal IV.
At the 1950 Earls Court Show Burlingham had two new coach designs on Royal Tiger and AEC Regal IV chassis, both shown with a luxury 37-seat seating plan in their central-entrance bodies, when 39 or 41 would have been the more likely choice of all but the most-upmarket customers.
The designs were related, having similar detailing and windscreens, and an identical cast chromium-plated frontal motif, but the AEC had traditional teardrop-shape wheel-arch mouldings and a straight waist rail with vertical window pillars, whilst the Leyland[13] had a curved waist rail, window pillars angled back from the vertical and an ellipsoid moulding sweeping from the front to the rear of the coach; this feature was known internally as the 'tank panel' because of its resemblance in shape to a World War One tank.
Others who ordered very large numbers of the style were Ribble and many other BET group members and independent coach operators, the largest customer from that sector being Wallace Arnold.
[16] Burlingham also produced a service bus body for the new chassis; this had a simple outline but generally came with the brightwork motif on the front and with optional chrome trim strips along the sides.
The open platform did not work well with an underfloor-engined bus and as in Sheffield, Edinburgh, Pontypridd and West Bromwich, the Bournemouth buses were converted to front entrance layout.
Manchester Corporation started a spell as a Burlingham customer with the purchase of a batch of split-level coaches for its airport service: the first six were on Leyland Royal Tiger chassis in 1953 and, like the contemporary British European Airways' AEC Regal IVs, carried the roof line from the raised rear passenger section through to the front of the bus.
Manchester then took double-deck bodies which were similar to the mid-1950s Ribble outline but highbridge with a more upright front to fit the maximum number of seats in a 27-foot-long bus.
The single-deck body was developed for lighter-weight underfloor-engined chassis such as the Leyland Tiger Cub, AEC Reliance and Guy Arab LUF from 1953.
Wolverhampton Corporation took one identical body on a Guy Arab IV whilst another but with half-cab and exposed radiator went to Samuel Morgan of Armthorpe Yorkshire.
The single-deck bus body styles began to diverge from the mid fifties with some operators such as Sheffield Transport looking for more coach-like vehicles while Reading sought a design better suited to moving large numbers of standing passengers.
[18] Burlingham sought to facelift the Seagull every two years or so to keep up with rival coach builders but every time a change was introduced some of the original purity of line went with it.
Whilst late Seagulls on Reliance or Tiger Cub chassis could still look good, the Seagull Mk 7 was launched at the 1958 motor show but only 20 were built on underfloor heavyweight chassis, the versions for Bedford SB, Commer Avenger or Ford Thames Trader PSVs began to assume a very strange appearance, the strangest perhaps being the version known internally as 'The Pig' which was fitted with a shallow two-piece wrap-around windscreen.
[19][20] Burlingham realised there was nowhere left to take the style, which by now had reverted to steel reinforced timber frames for the lightweights and from 1959 launched a new range of bodies.