Big Boy's "Things"

the name William Britain. William Britain, Britains, W. Britain and Petite are just four of the names the oldest and most well-known UK toy company has been known as over the years. The exact moment when William Britain Senior turned his hand from 'Brass Cock Maker', his original trade, to toy maker is unknown. However what is catalogued is the start of toy soldier production, the business which made W. Britain a household name during the 20th Century.

It all began in 1893, prior to this W. Britain had produced a number of mechanical toys with varied success, but in 1893 William Britain Senior cracked the hollowcast toy soldier process and the rest, as they say, is history. Until 1893 the German toy makers had dominated the toy soldier world and then as if from nowhere W. Britain launched its first few hollowcast figures. Hollowcasting was the process where molten lead was poured into a figure mould and before the entire figure could set some of the molten metal was poured back out again. What this process achieved was the lead would form a skin on the inside of the mould, but by pouring the molten lead back out again it would leave the figure hollow in the centre. There have been German figures discovered, predating 1893, which appear to be hollow, however it's W. Britain who really pushed this process into the mainstream and used it to their full advantage. With each figure containing less metal, the most expensive component in the figures at the time, W. Britain were able to achieve a lower retail price and thus compete with the more expensive German made figures from this period.

From 1893 onwards, W. Britain continued to grow and evolve as the hollowcast toy soldier gained in popularity with production only slowing/stopping during the First and Second World Wars. Little changed with the style of the figures (apart from the introduction of the farm series in 1921) until the late 1950s when the introduction of plastic figures from companies such as Herald made Britains sit up and take notice (Britains eventually bought out Herald in 1959). Plastic figures now became the mainstay of Britains business with the metal hollowcast figures finally ceasing production in 1966.

Above is a small part of my Britain's " zoo" collection, a 1950 post war London Zoo elephant ride. The company, as well as a few others produced an incredible array of toy figures for children in the 1800-1900's complete with lead exhibit fencing, buildings and zoo keepers. Below is another piece from Jim Stockley's great collection. He tell's of moving it all to South Africa, and taking the Britain circus set in his carry on luggage so as to keep it safe. That's a man with his priority's straight. It has always fascinated me, that people from different parts of the world, with a similar background, who may have never personally met each other have so many of the same interests. I mentioned to Jim that a number of years ago, when ebay first came on the scene it was a great place to find and buy(it still is actually) old zoo guide books and other paper empheria. I bought a number of items initially, and then I noticed item's that I had lost because I didn't think it was worth what the highest bid was, were won by the same person. I did some checking and found that the person who was bidding on the same zoo material that I was, was Jim Clubb!!!!!! Two years ago, I made myself promise if I was interested in an item, and Clubb came in with the high bid, I was dropping out, so he didn't bankrupt both of us. LOL I also know deep in my heart that Richard Reynolds now has some items in his possession that I would have loved to have had.