Harry and Edwin in front of a Maudsley, with a Beagle body – made in 1934 and taken into the Shaws fleet in 1939. The white paint on the front mudguards were done during the war, when you couldn’t use headlights at night
The Maxey coaching firm was founded in 1922 by Edwin ‘Teddy’ Shaw, the grandfather of the present family partners Richard, Christopher and Jane. Edwin came originally from the Leeds area and had a background in engineering, as in his younger days - in the late 1890s and early 1900s, he serviced and repaired washing machines, which must have been quite a novelty in those days!
He became an engineer with Smiths of Rodley and it was through the company that he came to Peterborough, when he was transferred to work for Peter Brotherhood as a millwright during the Great War.
He married a local girl, Sarah Ann Roffe, from West Deeping, and for a time they lived in Walton, before moving out to Maxey where they took the momentous decision to buy their first charabanc with a small legacy that had been left to Edwin by a wealthy aunt. Edwin’s interest in buses probably came from his early life in Leeds where he was a part-time driver for Wallace Arnold.
Edwin and Sarah’s first home in Maxey was in the High Street (near the junction with Tuckers Nook) and the bus was kept in a barn in Castle End Road.
Edwin and Sarah ran a local bus service into Peterborough and did anything else that came along, including furniture removals! They couldn’t afford to have the vehicle off the road for very long and repairs were usually carried out by working through the night by candle-light with the help of friends and neighbours in the village, many of whom also served their time behind the wheel.
A couple of years later they had the chance to purchase the house and land at 49 High Street (where the company are currently based) and after much deliberation decided to take a chance and ‘go for it’. The business did well, with regular trips to the seaside, darts matches, football matches, dances, etc. Edwin kept up his engineering skills and the company had a shop at the front of the premises selling all sorts - ranging from bulbs and batteries to cycles - and undertaking repairs to almost anything anyone brought along.
Like so many other businesses, the war curtailed its growth and prosperity, but the bus services and repairs continued and after the war, Edwin worked hard to build the business back up. By then, his son, Harry, who served his apprenticeship in the workshop and then went on to drive, had joined him. One of his favourite jobs was as team driver for Peterborough United but he also did more than his fair share of driving for the local dance-bands.
E. Shaw became E. Shaw & Son in 1952 when Edwin made Harry a partner and gradually Harry became more office-based.
Edwin and Sarah moved up to a house in Deeping Gate (opposite the old Cuckoo pub) and Harry stayed on to live at No. 49 with his wife, Doreen. As the 1950’s drew to a close, Edwin left the day-to-day running more and more to Harry but he used to drive down most days just to keep an eye on things - and woe betide any driver who took the Cuckoo corner too fast - he always heard them and made sure they knew about it the next day. Sarah died in 1964 and Edwin two years later at the age of 80.
Harry then became sole proprietor. He continued Edwin’s hard work and the business flourished under his leadership. In addition to operating local schools and works contracts and an excellent private hire service, he had quite a flair for buying and selling coaches and winter Sundays often took the family all over the country to “look at a bus”.
In those days of non-motorway travel it was not at all unusual to find themselves in deepest Devon or crossing the border to Scotland.
Harry died suddenly in 1981 and the three children inherited the business. The siblings took on a manager but soon realised that if the business was to continue to offer the sort of service on which Edwin and Harry had built it up, it needed the personal touch and family commitment which they had always provided. Richard, Chris and Jane have now been at the helm for 27 years. “It’s a source of pleasure and pride that we still have some customers who have been served by all three generations and that we have such a long-serving and loyal team working with us,” Jane told the Tribune.
The advent of coach tour and bus de-regulation at the start of the 1980’s gave the company the opportunity to develop the business into new areas and, not long after they took over, Jane, Richard and Chris started a small programme of day excursions (one every couple of months) and holidays. Shaws published their first holiday brochure in 1982 - with just six tours. The first one went to Llandudno in April with only six passengers (including Mum and our Gran), but fortunately the rest did rather better!
The following year they risked increasing the number of departures to 10 and the rest, as they say, is history. Shaws now operate more than 100 holidays and 300 day tours each year, in addition to their local contract and private hire work.
The fleet currently stands at 24 coaches and today’s modern vehicles are quite a far cry from the Reos (24 seats), Morris (20 seats), Chevrolet (14 seats) and Gilfords (32 seats) which were amongst Edwin’s first vehicles. The original fleet colours were brown and cream and changed to blue and cream in the mid 60s, when Harry was buying the Bedford’s -which were the mainstay of the fleet throughout the late 60s and 70s. Today the fleet is predominantly Volvo based.
The premises have grown considerably over the years. The garage at the front of the property was built around 1930 by Edwin and friends from the village and it has certainly proved to be quite a robust structure. As the fleet expanded and vehicles grew larger Shaws gradually used more of the land behind the garage, putting in a ‘wash-bed’ and later adding a Nissan hut-type building that was used as an additional workshop and for garaging the coaches. (The Nissan hut wasn’t quite such a sturdy building and was replaced about 20 years ago by the permanent structure seen today.)
These two buildings once housed the majority of the fleet, but as time went on and 29 seaters gave way to 33, then 41, 45 and finally 53-seat coaches, the company were unable to keep the vehicles under cover. They also had to use more and more of the yard for parking, “sadly, there is no longer space to have our Guy Fawkes’ bonfire in the ‘field’ and the chickens have long since ceased to roam around the yard,” reminisces Jane.
The office building used today was built in 1969 and at the time seemed more than sufficient for the firm’s needs going into the foreseeable future - they didn’t have quite so much paperwork to deal with then. Legislation and bureaucracy are one of Shaws constant challenges. But at the time, it must have seemed quite a luxury for Harry and his three members of staff to go from one room to four.
Prices have changed a bit since 1922. At the start of the 1930s, day excursions to Skegness, Hunstanton and Wicksteed were a regular feature and would earn between £3 5s 0d and £5 each. Even as late as 1968 you could have hired three coaches to Great Yarmouth for a total of just £56.
Nowadays, it would probably cost Shaws almost as much as this just to pay the coach parking charges for three vehicles in some towns! A notebook from 1941 records Harry’s wages at £1 2s 6d a week. In October 1943 this was increased to £2 and by April 1949 his pay had doubled to £4!
Selling and repairing cycles was one of Edwin’s lucrative sidelines during the 1950s. In 1952 you could have purchased a new Hercules Ladies Cycle for £20 2s 6d. “We do sometimes wonder if we shouldn’t start selling them again!” Jane concluded.
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