Protestant nonconformity was one of the most significant aspects of 19th-century Britain. Focusing on some of the lesser known ministers of dissenting denominations, Brown recreates the lives, both private and professional, of an influential but heretofore anonymous group of religious leaders.

A Social History of the Nonconformist Ministry in England and Wales 1800-1930

Literature & Fiction

Brown, Kenneth D.

British & Irish

Clarendon Press

English Labour Movement, 1700-1951

(Gill and Macmillan 1982)

The toy industry and its close relationship with children's artifacts 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.\nIt 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.

A History of Tri-ang and Lines Brothers Ltd: The rise and fall of the World’s largest Toy making Company

Business & Money

Biography & History

Pen and Sword History

At its height British toymaking was a significant industry, with famous names such as Britains and Meccano known throughout the world. While in essence a specialised form of small-scale engineering, its products and market have always been unique, reflecting the current priorities of both parents and children. Yet, while individual toys and marques have been catalogued extensively, no previous history of toymaking as a whole exists. The British Toy Business provides a fascinating example of the development of a specific industry.
Many early early toys were home-made. From the eighteenth century, with its growing recognition of children as something other than small adults, date the beginnings of specialised toys, usually produced by small workshops and sold by street-sellers. The nineteenth century, with its industrial growth and middle-class prosperity, saw an expansion of toymaking.
The 1960s and 1970s were the most successful years of British toymaking, with companies like Lesney making record profits. Yet British toy makers failed to solve a number of fundamental problems. Following an unexpected sudden downturn in sales at a time of high interest rates, the major names in British toy making, Lesney, Airfix, Mettoy and Dunbee Combex Marx, all collapsed between 1979 and 1985, leaving the business to be dominated largely by importers.

The British Toy Business: A History since 1700

Economics

Bloomsbury Academic

Ralph Finn had acquired a set of Meccano which disappeared when he was about eleven years old and was then rediscovered some years later as he and his widowed mother were preparing to move out of their slum home in Aldgate in the east end of London. Resolving to give the set to the first child he met, Finn thrust it into the hands of the astonished urchin, whose incredulity at his good fortune was such that his benefactor was moved to tears. ‘“For me, mister?” It was the “me” that did it. My eyes,’ recalled Finn, ‘brimmed with tears …’ The boy’s astonishment was understandable, given that he had just been presented with what was then – and for long remained – the most successful brand name toy in Britain. After a stunned moment of disbelief, he clutched his booty to his puny chest and scampered off, disappearing from Finn’s sight and indeed from history. The young lad’s unexpected gift had been the invention of Frank Hornby, a Liverpool businessman whose company was also responsible for the highly popular Hornby train sets and which was shortly to launch the even more successful range of Dinky model vehicles. All three products – Meccano, Hornby and Dinky – became eponymous terms, an achievement which probably no other toy company anywhere in the world has ever matched. Writing in the 1970s of his childhood fifty years earlier another Londoner, Louis Heren, recalled only one plaything by name – Meccano. Few other names are so calculated, even a quarter of a century or so after the company’s closure, to mist the eyes of the (mainly but by no means exclusively) male generations reared in Britain or its imperial territories during the twentieth century and whose childhood leisure hours were so happily passed in playing with the outputs of Binns Road, Hornby’s Liverpool factory. Most of the existing books about Meccano are concerned primarily with detail, often highly technical. That the authors are in most cases amateur historians is in no way to belittle their achievements, since between them they have preserved much that would otherwise have been lost; they are usually historically aware, and they generally write with the passion of the enthusiast. Reading their work certainly helps develop a fuller appreciation of why the Christmas present of a Meccano set, a birthday Hornby train, or the pocket money Dinky prompted in their recipients such joy and delight. Factory of Dreams draws from these works but offers the reader far more, providing for the first time a comprehensive history of the company behind the famous names. How exactly did Frank Hornby build his small Liverpool engineering firm into an international enterprise? Who were the men alongside him? How did Hornby’s legacy affect developments after his death? Why was the company unable to adjust to the more challenging trading environment of the 1960s? What effect did successive takeovers by Lines Brothers and Airfix have? Were the trade unions the ultimate cause of the company’s demise? Drawing on surviving company archives to an unparalleled extent, these are just some of the issues addressed in this lively survey, written by a leading economic historian who has published widely on the history of the toy business. There is something for everyone in this book. For the enthusiast, there is the context to bring a fuller understanding of why particular products evolved as they did. For those interested in business, Meccano seems symptomatic of much of the British engineering industry in the twentieth century, more concerned with technical quality than economic efficiency and dogged by sour industrial relations. In adding to the growing list of company histories relating to Liverpool and the North West heartland of industrial Britain, the book has the further merit of focusing on a relatively neglected manufacturing sector.

Factory of Dreams: A History of Meccano, Ltd.

Humor & Entertainment

Puzzles & Games

Carnegie Publishing

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Books by Brown, Kenneth D.