Jill Viner: London’s first woman bus driver

Jill Viner (1952–1996) became the first woman to drive a London bus licensed to carry passengers in June 1974. She was based at Norbiton garage in south west London, and her first bus was an RT type. Jill retired from driving buses in 1993.

I’ve always been interested in buses - don’t ask me why. I was about eight years old when I made up my mind I wanted to be a bus driver.

Jill knew she wanted to become a bus driver in 1960. Back then women were forbidden from driving passenger buses professionally, and it would be another fourteen years before the law changed and the role was opened up to women. Although some women had already driven buses for London Transport, Jill was the first to drive passengers in service.

Jill did her training at the Chiswick training centre. Her instructor remembered her as a model pupil who was determined to succeed.

There have been a few surprised looks from passengers at stops who have spotted that a woman was driving. They must be the ones the conductors have told me have fallen up the stairs!  I’m too busy concentrating on my job to see what other people are doing.

Women drivers before Jill Viner

Records suggest there could have been women London bus drivers over a century before Jill Viner. A Daily Chronicle article suggests Anne Mitchell operated her own omnibus between City and Hammersmith around 1830. Although not a driver, Elizabeth Birch was a successful Victorian omnibus operator from 1846 until her death in 1874.

During the Second World War, women drove buses around depots, but none were permitted licenses to carry passengers. In 1956, Daisy Kettle, a member of the engineering staff at Southall garage, was recorded as the only female member of staff qualified to drive a bus, though not in service.

Women bus drivers since

Within a few weeks of Jill Viner’s first day as a driver, it was reported that thirty women had applied to drive buses. But after this initial interest, uptake was slow. In 1980, London Transport began pro-actively recruiting women to become bus drivers, with adverts playing on the then-prevalent (untrue) sexist stereotype that women were poor drivers.

Women also worked as inspectors and bus engineers, but in relatively small numbers. In most depots they would often be the only female employee.

Today, there are many more women working in all areas of Transport for London and women are represented at all levels of the organisation. However, women are still not proportionally represented within public transport and comparatively few women are bus drivers.