Why bus firm foreman was saved from going to the Front

This photograph shows the staff of Tilling-Stevens Ltd on June 19, 1915.

Seated on the end of the middle row, on the right-hand side, is Halton Kemp.

Mr Kemp was the grandfather of Christina Brockwell, of Holtye Crescent, Maidstone, who gave us these details: “My grandfather joined the small firm that William Stevens was starting around the turn of the century and he became charge- hand in the experimental work on petrol-electric engines.

“He worked on the first two buses built at Maidstone. These were shipped to Holland and went into service from Amsterdam to Rotterdam.

“This attracted the bus company Thomas Tilling Ltd, who were the first to adopt the petro-electric system for their London fleet of buses, which meant the partnership of Tilling-Stevens Ltd and led to a big factory beside the Medway.”

The Tilling-Stevens factory, built in 1917, is now the Powerhub in St Peter’s Street and under threat of redevelopment.

The Tilling-Stevens buses were the first hybrids. A petrol engine drove an electric generator and the current produced powered the back wheels. Because there were no gear changes, passengers had an exceptionally smooth ride. Mrs Brockwell said: “My grandfather also helped Mr Stevens to install petrol buses at Hastings. He became the company’s general foreman for several years, before resigning in 1921 to start his own road haulage business.”

Mr Kemp ran his company, H.P.Kemp Ltd, from premises in Granville Road, Maidstone, until his retirement in the 1960s. He lived to be 97, but it might easily have been otherwise. During the First World War he tried to join up, and arrived home proudly one lunch-time in his new Army uniform. But by the end of the afternoon, he was back in civvies.

Tilling-Stevens, whose buses were being used to transport troops to the front, had him excused on the grounds that as foreman of the works he was indispensable to the war effort.