page_title: British Electric Traction
section_title: Tramway services
hierarchical_section_title: British Electric Traction / History / Early history / Tramway services
caption_attribution_description: English: Tram at Black Country Living Museum. At the end of the line, the pantograph is turned around so that it makes a trailing contact with the electricity supply.
context_page_description: British Electric Traction Company Limited, renamed BET plc in 1985, was a large British industrial conglomerate. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index but was acquired by Rentokil in 1996, and the merged company is now known as Rentokil Initial.
context_section_description: The company was founded in 1895 as British Electric Traction Company Ltd, with Sir Charles Rivers Wilson as chairman and Emile Garcke as managing director. It was involved in the electrification of tramways in British towns and cities, and also in Australia and New Zealand, for example in Auckland.  From operating trams, BET moved on to manufacturing them with the purchase of Brush Electrical Engineering Company in 1901.
  The BET became the largest of the private owners of tramways in the British Isles. During its history, it gained control in England of the Metropolitan Electric and South Metropolitan systems in London, as well as systems in Barnsley, Barrow-in-Furness, Birmingham, Birmingham and Midland, Brighton and Shoreham, Cambridge, Devonport and District, Dewsbury Ossett and Soothill Nether, Dudley and Stourbridge, Gateshead, Gravesend, Great Yarmouth, Hartlepool, Jarrow, Kidderminster and Stourport, Leamington and Warwick, Mexborough and Swinton, Middleton, Oldham Ashton and Hyde, Peterborough, Poole, the Potteries, Rossendale Valley, Sheerness, South Staffordshire, Southport, South Shields, Taunton, Tynemouth, Weston-Super-Mare, Wolverhampton District, Worcester, and Yorkshire (Woollen District).
  In Wales 
  Merthyr Tydfil Electric Tramways
  Swansea
  Swansea and Mumbles Railway
  Wrexham and District Electric Tramways
  In Scotland
  Airdrie and Coatbridge Tramways
  Greenock and Port Glasgow
  Rothesay and Ettrick Bay Light Railway
  In Northern Ireland
  Cavehill and Whitewell Tramway
  The last BET tram ran on 4 August 1951, when the Gateshead and District Tramways Company replaced its trams with  buses.
caption: Wolverhampton District Electric Tramways Company preserved tramcar at the Black Country Museum
exif: {"Image Make": "Vivitar Corporation", "Image Model": "V3826 Digital Camera", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "DSC Firmware Ver 1.49.16 Rev 1.00P", "Image DateTime": "2003:01:01 00:23:08", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image Copyright": "Copyright", "Image ExifOffset": "306", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "9132", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7100", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/288", "EXIF FNumber": "29/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2003:01:01 00:23:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2003:01:01 00:23:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "8169/1000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "28/5", "EXIF BrightnessValue": "83/10", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "29/10", "EXIF SubjectDistance": "41/20", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Daylight", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, auto mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "26/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2304", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1728", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "9008", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0/0", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "3"}