It predecessor company, W. Alexander & Sons Ltd. can be traced back to 1923, and had been split into three smaller companies in 1961. The largest of these, W. Alexander & Sons Ltd. had an operating territory extended from Glasgow and Bo'ness in the south to Oban and Pitlochry in the north. In 1970 the Oban depot and services had been transferred to Highland Omnibuses Ltd., but the operating area was still large and varied. In preparation for deregulation of the bus industry and eventual privatisation the Scottish Bus Group reorganised its subsidiaries in 1985 to create smaller operating units which more closely corresponded with local government boundaries and which reduced the number of jointly-operated services. To this end, the Alexander depots at within Strathclyde Region were ceded to a new company Kelvin Scottish Omnibuses Ltd., whilst those in Tayside Region passed to another new company Strathtay Scottish Omnibuses Ltd.. The company's central works adjacent to Larbert depot also passed to another new SBG subsidiary, SBG Engineering Ltd. The remainder of Alexander was renamed Midland Scottish Omnibuses Ltd., and consisted of the Central Region depots at Alloa, Balfron, Bannockburn, Callander, Grangemouth and Larbert. To these were added the former Scottish Omnibuses depot at Linlithgow in West Lothian, so as to give Midland Scottish full responsibility for the hitherto jointly operated Edinburgh to Stirling / Falkirk services. Also transferred to Midland Scottish were the SBG's operations in Argyllshire from Oban, Ardrishaig and Bridgend, Islay. The traditional Alexander's azure blue and ivorylivery was retained for the Midland Scottish fleet, and some coaches and dual-purpose vehicles continued to wear the bluebirdlogo that had long been used by Alexander's coaching operations. The Bluebird name was also revived as a marketing name for express services into Glasgow and Edinburgh and for the coach fleet. Compared to some other SBG subsidiaries, Midland Scottish's operations continued largely unchanged by deregulation. The company did not compete against city operators in Glasgow or Edinburgh which were on the outer extremities of its territory, and within the coreStirling and Falkirk area it faced only light competition from small independent firms. Its As a result, Midland was one of the most successful of the Scottish Bus Group subsidiaries, being the second most profitable after Fife Scottish. The Argyllshire operations were detached from the rest of the company but had been given to Midland Scottish in 1985 as it was the closest subsidiary with a partially rural operating area. They were considered too small to become a separate company in their own right, too far from Inverness to be managed by Highland Scottish, and too dissimilar to Kelvin Scottish's largely urban network around Glasgow. Nevertheless they were peripheral to Midland's operations and the company soon began to divest itself of them. The Islay operations were surrendered to a local independent, whilst the Ardrishaig depot was sold to West Coast Motors of Campbeltown in 1987. In 1988 SBG Engineering closed the Larbert works, and Midland Scottish took it over as their head office. In 1990, as the company prepared for privatisation, it began trading as Midland Bluebird. It became the second SBG subsidiary to be privatised when it was sold for £8.5m in September 1990 to GRT Group, one of the predecessors of the FirstGroup. Shortly afterward, the company changed its legal name to Midland Bluebird Ltd. In 1992 Oban depot was sold to Oban and District, completing the withdrawal from Argyllshire. In September 1992 the company announced a smoking ban on all its services from 12 October, after a highly publicised public consultation found that 91% of respondents wished smoking to be banned on its services. The former operations of Midland Scottish are today part of First Edinburgh, trading simply as First, after being merged with neighbouring First subsidiaries SMT and Lowland.
