Here we have a beautiful example of a vintage Merrythought toy cat. These now very rare and sort after soft toys are manufactured by Merrythought based at Ironbridge in Shropshire. Merrythought is now the UK’s last remaining teddy bear factory which originally started manufacturing soft toys in the 1930’s and became the UK’s largest toy factory by 1935. The company was started by Gordon Holmes in the 30’s and is still family run by his 2 daughters to this day now coming up on 100 years!
They have many famous bears such as the original “Mr Whoppit”, known as the mascot for the famous land and water speed record breaker, Donald Campbell. In 1957 the “Cheeky” bear was introdused and is still manufactured at the same factory in the same way today!
Gordon Cragg / Merrythought Teddy Bear Shop
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Merrythought_Ironbridge_2009.jpg
Production continued right up to the early 2000’s before the influence of cheaper foreign products began to flood the UK markets forcing Merrythought to change their direction. In 2007 they started to focus on a small much sharper “collector” based group of products.
All the toys are still hand made in England using traditional methods such as mohair to produce a limited range of toys for the high end of the market. More Recently they have produced limited edition bears for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton and the Queens Diamond Jubilee!
This is one of many wonderfully rare items with such a history in its making that we have here at Hungerford Arcade.
