The toy industry and its close relationship with children’s artefacts and equipment, made a huge contribution British ascendancy in light industry, after decline of heavy industry. Light industry was a pivotal theme in British economic history and toy-making and sales in internationals markets was a vital ingredient in Britain’s reputation as the ‘workshop of the world’. It flourished from the Great Exhibition of 1951 - in competition with German and French toy industries - through the 20th century and the great depression of 1929, to postwar commercial ascendancy in consumer goods. Decline began in face of US and Asian competition.and with Britain’s post-war economic problems; and, the nature of family business contributed, with the passing of generations and loss of drive and tenacity. It is a family business story of the Lines Brothers Ltd, the world’s largest manufacturer of children’s toys with the household name of Triang, with model railways, Minic and Spot-on toy cars, soft toys, 1918-29 Pedigree prams, dolls’ houses, Cindy dolls. It is a serious economic, industrial and business, history, full of personality and rivalry from supreme Victorian entrepreneurship to modern international decline, but a social and cultural story intimately linked history of childhood.
AUTHOR: Professor Kenneth D Brown is Emeritus Professor of History at Queen’s University Belfast and a specialist in modern British political, economic and social history, in the 19th and 20th centuries. He is the leading expert in the history of the toy industry. His a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and Academy of Social Sciences. His publications include The Unknown Gladstone: The Political Life of Hebert Gladstone, 1854-1930 ; The British Toy Business: A History since 1700 (1996); Factory of Dreams: A History of Meccano Ltd, 1901-1979 (2007); The British Toy Industry (2011); plus many works on modern British economic and social history, entries in the Dictionary of National Biography, and articles in peer reviewed journals.
