Rees
& Williams Ltd and West Wales Motors Ltd
‘The Friendly Rivals’
The convoluted history of
‘The Friendly Rivals’, Rees & Williams, and West Wales Motors, can only be
told together, due to their close alliance and extraordinary relationship
between the shareholders.
The humble beginnings of
Rees & Williams can be traced back to 1913, when Lewis Llewelyn Rees, and his
nephew David John Rees, both coal miners at Pantyffynnon Colliery, started a taxi
business at Pontardulais Rd, Tycroes. The colliery manager arranged their
shifts so that there was always someone available to drive the taxi, and when the
business prospered in 1916, they left the colliery to focus on their transport
business, which expanded to include haulage and motor vehicle repair garage.
Another local collier,
C.B. Williams joined them in their business venture in 1920, from whence it
became known as ‘Rees & Williams’. Their first omnibus arrived in 1920, and
the company was registered in 1926.
C.B. Williams left the Rees
& Williams concern in 1928, and formed a syndicate to establish West Wales
Motors Ltd, initially at Llanelli, but retained his shareholding at Rees &
Williams.
West Wales Motors ran
services that were common to Rees & Williams, with co-ordinated timetables
and inter-availability of return and season tickets.
With the threat of
nationalisation in post war times, West Wales Motors formed a subsidiary
company, West Wales Coach Services Ltd, in 1946, in order to safeguard
themselves in the event of losing their stage services to nationalisation.
In 1977, West Wales
Motors absorbed two services from ‘Pathlin Ltd’, a company ‘set up’ by the
notorious Peter Smith Bus Services, Garnswllt, which is also included in this
publication.
West Wales Coach Services
Ltd was wound up in 1983, and West Wales Motors were absorbed by ‘D Coaches
Ltd’, Morriston, Swansea in 1984, who also purchased the Rees & Williams
business in 1987, finally amalgamating both companies, with the title ‘Rees
& Williams/West Wales.
The title was dropped in
1996, when First Bus PLC absorbed that part of ‘D Coaches’ business, but were
compelled to retain the ‘Rees & Williams’ title for two years.
This 250 page publication
gives a succinct history of the businesses, which has previously never been
told. Illustrated with over 350 photographs and other informative memorabilia
covering the period, it has been produced to celebrate the 100th
anniversary of the first bus service in Tycroes.
<!-- Google Analytics -->
<script>
(function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
(i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
})(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create',