This week’s object is the model of the tram used in the enquiry into a tragic tram disaster in 1906.

As the 20th century dawned, Swindon Corporation’s eyes looked to a public transport infrastructure that would link the Old Town up on the hill with the New Town that was rapidly expanding beyond the railway village around the GWR works.

By 1904, the town had purchase an initial fleet of 48 electric trams, installed the lines and built a tram depot just off Corporation Street with a small power station next door. On Thursday, 22 September 1904, the people of the town got their first taste of electric travel, and the tram was soon a staple part of Swindon life.

Sadly, though, the glorious days of the Swindon tram are most commonly associated with a tragedy.

Less than two years after the inaugural trip, on 1 June 1906, the number 11 tram was travelling down Victoria Road. The tram was crowded with passengers who had just spent a day at the Bath and South West Counties Show, which was held at Broome Manor Farm. The tram was licensed to carry 58 passengers, but reports at the time estimate that between 70 and 80 were aboard. As the tram made its way down the steep hill its brakes failed, and when it reached the sharp bend into Regent Street, it overturned.

The Western Gazette reported: “Lyons, the driver, stuck to his car to the last. He is said to have been an experienced motor-man. He received some slight injuries to his side, but soon recovered. Lyons declares that he put on his brakes on reaching the hill, and applied them as hard as he could. He never let his foot off these until the car toppled over, and did all that he could to avert the disaster. There was an absence of screaming, one and all awaiting with a grim quietness the denouement which all felt was bound to come.

“The passengers on the top were precipitated into the road like stones out of a catapult, some being thrown a considerable distance. There was a great many people about at the time, and for some moments the greatest consternation prevailed. A few cool heads were soon on the spot to render assistance.

“The shrieks and groans of the injured filled the air, and one spectator says that blood ran into the gutter in streams. Scarcely a single passenger escaped without injury, although one or two who saw their danger had jumped off before it was too late.”

A doctor who lived nearby was one of the first to reach the gruesome scene, and was soon joined by four colleagues from the Great Western Surgery.

Ambulances were used to take the 35 injured to Victoria Hospital in Okus Road, Old Town, and sadly four of those died - Harry Dyke, a brewer’s agent from Goddard Avenue, E.H. Coad, the licensee of the Railway Inn in Newport Street, Rowland J. Thurnford, a farmer from Draycot Cerne, and Charles Phippen, a Somerset county councillor who lived in Bath. One other man, Thomas Neate, also from Bath, died of his injuries six weeks after the accident.

At the enquiry, some witnesses said the tram was travelling at speed and that it was ‘grossly’ overcrowded. Others believed the track at the bottom of Victoria Road was unsafe, as trams had experienced similar, but less severe, incidents in the past. One of the passengers later sued Swindon Corporation for £7,200 for negligence, believing that the driver was not familiar with the newly built tramcar he was steering that day. That’s the current day equivalent of around £612,000.

Swindon’s tram era lasted less than 25 years, to be replaced with the age of the omnibus, and the last tram travelled from Gorse Hill to Rodbourne on 11 July 1929.

  • You can find out more about Swindon’s story at the Swindon Museum and Art Gallery. It is open from Tuesday to Saturday from 10am to 5pm.