This letter from Sir John Jarvis (Chairman of the National Omnibus & Transport Co) to Sir Felix Pole clearly sums up the aspirations of one individual who, with stolid determination, played the railway company at their own game. The Railways’ Road Transport Bill had, only weeks before, been moving through Parliament and Jarvis was anxious to commence talks with the GWR, even before the Bill had been passed. The railway company had been consistently building up a sizeable portfolio of bus services throughout its territory. From 1919, when they possessed just 38 services, of which as many as 26 operated in Devon and Cornwall alone, to 1927, by which time it had increased to 191, of which the two counties enjoyed 72 GWR omnibus routes. When one recalls that by 1928 the Great Western controlled 168 bus services over its territory, using 300 vehicles and carrying over 8 million passengers annually, all without specific powers to do so, how remarkable an achievement it was. With so many rail and road connections available it was a most complicated task to dovetail the workings of the two together, yet this they managed to do with some measure of success.  In bringing about the fusion of the Great Western Railway’s bus services with those of the National Omnibus & Transport Company in the Westcountry we must turn the pages back and take a look at the way each player came into the ring. The National company was registered in 1920 to take over the business formerly carried on by the National Steam Car Company Ltd. The steam car company had itself been founded in 1909 to promote the use of steam omnibuses, particularly in London, though its founder and creator, Thomas Clarkson, was based at Chelmsford, Essex in which district he had already tried to make an impression. It was in that town that the steam buses were built, but it was not until 1913 that operations with his vehicles really took off in that area when the company acquired the bus services operated by the Great Eastern Railway. In London, however, Clarkson enjoyed success. The steam bus was quieter and smoother running than its petrol counterpart and by 1914 he had over 170 of them working principally on four routes between Stoke Newington and Putney, Shepherd’s Bush and Dulwich, Peckham and Camden, and Putney and Liverpool Street Station. Following an agreement with the London General Omnibus Company in 1919, the National surrendered its London services to them in exchange for the General’s services in the Bedfordshire area which lay outside their newly defined boundary. This move coincided with the National’s own policy to scrap its steam operations in favour of petrol driven buses which now provided the scope for expansion into the provinces. Soon after Clarkson, who had been involved with steam developments and patents since 1895, severed his connection with the company and went on to apply his ideas elsewhere.