Subject: East Ham UDC 31
Maker: Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works, Preston
Seating: 56
Truck: Brill 21E
Motors: Dick, Kerr
Controller: Dick, Kerr
Location: ?
Date: c.1904

The first 35 trams for East Ham were built by ERTCW between 1901 and 1903. Originally open-top they were very soon given top covers as seen here. This photograph may be taken in West Ham but with all background removed it is difficult to establish with certainty. There has also been a certain amount of retouching on the original negative, more so in the top deck. The scruffy reversed staircase indicates that this photograph is not of a new tram.

The device in the middle shows it to be owned by East Ham District Council, short for Urban District Council. It became a Borough in 1904 and a County Borough in 1917. What looks like a coat-of-arms is not an official one, but one designed by the council's surveyor in 1896.

The later bogie trams were longer and able to display an "East Ham Corporation Tramways" fleet name.

Photograph from the GEC Archive