In 1855 the most important event in the history of English omnibuses occurred, for on December 4 of that year a “Société en Commandite” was established in Paris with the title of the “Compagnie Générale des Omnibus de Londres,” for the purpose of running omnibuses in London and its suburbs. The directors of this Society, or Company, were sufficiently astute to refrain from making it known to the London public that the enterprise was a French one. They chose an English name for public use, and the earliest notices of their contemplated operations were headed the “London Omnibus Company.” Apparently they were unaware that a company of that name had existed and come to a disappointing end, but doubtless this was intimated to them, for the name was changed speedily--before they started work--to the “London General Omnibus Company.” Moreover, as the first managers of the company were well-known London omnibus proprietors, there was nothing to make the public suspect that the company was not an English one. Monday, January 7, 1856, was the day selected by the London General Omnibus Company for taking over and beginning to work the old-established businesses which they had purchased. On that morning Wilson’s Islington and Holloway “Favorites” came out of the yards with “London General Omnibus Company” painted on them. The company could not possibly have started work under more auspicious circumstances, for Mr. Wilson was the largest omnibus proprietor in London, and his vehicles, which were known all over the Metropolis, had the reputation of being exceedingly well conducted. The property which Wilson sold to the Company consisted of fifty omnibuses and five hundred horses, and his employees, numbering about one hundred and eighty men, passed into the service of the new Company. On the same day Mr. Leonard Willing and his partners--the former the oldest omnibus proprietor in London--transferred to the Company the Stoke Newington, Kingsland and Dalston lines, consisting of twenty-two omnibuses, two hundred horses, and seventy men. In a few days several other lines passed into the hands of the Company, making it the owner of one hundred and ninety-eight vehicles and nineteen hundred and forty horses, and the employer of six hundred and seventy men. Of the vehicles purchased seven were four-horse mails, five running to Woodford and two to Barnet. The Company had hoped to start work with five hundred omnibuses, but many of the well-established proprietors could not be persuaded to sell their businesses, and consequently the London General Omnibus Company had to be content, for a time, with three hundred. The proprietors who did dispose of their businesses, and retired altogether from omnibus proprietorship were: Messrs. Bennet, Breach, Chancellor, Clark, Forge, Fox, Hartley, Hawtrey, Hinckley, Horne, Hunt, Johnson, Kerrison, Macnamara, Martin, Proome, Roads, Seale, Smith, Webb, Westropp, Williams, Willing, Wilson, and Woodford.