THE CHILDREN′S TOY INDUSTRY IN NINETEENTH–CENTURY BRITAIN.

The article presents information on the condition of Great Britain's toy industry in the nineteenth-century. The author says that the children's toy industry has been virtually ignored. The author says that for most of the nineteenth-century children, particularly those from poor homes or rural areas, commercially produced toys were virtually unknown luxuries. This still remained the case by the end of the century even after three decades of rising prosperity. Also, the British toy industry has been overlooked because, in the main, toys tended to be imported, especially from Switzerland, France and Germany. Domestic makers may have provided the bulk of the cheaper goods retailed either directly or through street vendors but even at this end of the market foreign competition was fierce, especially in small wooden toys. In general, imported goods formed the main stock of the specialist toy shops, which emerged during the eighteenth century, particularly in London where both the size and wealth of the population ensured a viable if somewhat elastic level of demand. Also, it is easy to overlook the existence of the toy industry because it was very small compared to the industrial giants on which Britain's economic prosperity rested.