The Meccano.
In 1887, Frank Hornby married school teacher Clara Walker Godefroy and in 1899 started making toys for their two sons – Roland and Douglas – crafting toy bridges, cranes and lorries from sheets of metal in his garden shed workshop.
In 1900, Frank Hornby invented the toy construction system ‘Meccano’ to teach his kids the basics of mechanics. Meccano was earlier known as ‘Mechanics made easy’.
Patented in 1901 as the rather worthy sounding "Improvements in Toy or Educational Devices for Children and Young People", his sets of perforated metal strips and girders were intended to teach basic mechanical principles, like levers and gearing, to young inquiring minds.
His first models however didn’t sell well but Hornby struggled on and with help from his then still employer, David Elliot. Now working together, Hornby and Elliot renamed their business “Mechanics Made Easy” and launched their first product in 1902. It consisted of 16 different parts with instructions on how to make 12 different models.
Although initial sales were slow they stuck with it and gradually sales increased from the 1500 sets sold in 1902 and by 1906 the company had become profitable.
Two years later, 1908, Hornby registered “Meccano” and formed Meccano Ltd.
In 1910, Frank’s son, Roland Hornby joined the business and launched an expansion into Europe, opening offices in France, then Germany and Barcelona, before in the United States.
In 1931, Hornby went into politics becoming the Conservative Member of Parliament for Everton (the small town in UK).
A visionary way ahead of his time, he lead his company to become the largest toy manufacturer in Britain and by the 1930s he was a millionaire.
He died of a died of a heart condition and diabetes in Maghull, near Liverpool, on 21st September 1936 but the toys he invented went on to inspire generations of children.
British production stopped during World War II but resumed in 1945 though taking some years to cover the full range of sets.
After a brief period of prosperity in the 1950s Meccano fortunes started to wane and after a series of takeovers production at the famous Liverpool Binns Road factory closed in 1979. For those boys who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, a Meccano set was the equivalent to today's Xbox or Nintendo.
However production continued at a Meccano subsidiary plant in France and continues to this day. The television and then later, computers, made a serious dent in the popularity of Meccano (and many other practical hobbies).
Meccano is currently enjoying a worldwide resurgence of interest due, paradoxically, in large part to the computer and the internet.
Thousands of enthusiasts all over the world are still building Meccano models today.