In 1832, wishing to still further increase the number of his omnibuses, Shillibeer took into partnership Mr. William Morton, a Southwell publican, who sold his business to join him. The partnership was dissolved in January, 1834, Morton taking as his share of the business the whole of the New Road omnibuses. He failed, however, to make them pay, and sold them at a great loss. Eventually he became so reduced in circumstances that he applied for, and obtained, a position as an omnibus conductor, but was discharged for drunkenness, and, in a fit of despondency, committed suicide at his lodgings in Little Carlisle Street, Edgware Road. At the inquest, Shillibeer’s enemies--of whom he had a large number among short-stage-coach proprietors--endeavoured to prove that the deceased had been swindled over his omnibus partnership. But these charges were shown to be the outcome of jealousy and petty spite, and it was proved that, in giving over the New Road omnibuses to his late partner, Shillibeer had behaved with great generosity, for that was the only line on which there was no opposition. The omnibuses were paying excellently at the time of the dissolution of partnership, but Morton mismanaged them. The person to whom he sold them soon made them as remunerative as they had been under Shillibeer’s management. In fact, the New Road route was the best patronised, and, in 1837, there were fifty-four omnibuses on that road. The fares were then sixpence any distance. In the same year that Shillibeer took Morton into partnership, there were several lines of omnibuses running in opposition to him, for the old short-stage-coach proprietors were now alive to the fact that there was much money to be made out of omnibuses; but the original vehicles had the reputation of being excellently conducted, and, consequently, were preferred by the public. Aware of this, the proprietors of some opposition omnibuses had the impudence to paint on the panels of their vehicles the word “Shillibeer.” Shillibeer then named his omnibuses “Shillibeer’s Original Omnibuses.”