Hilary Fisher Page
Early Life[edit]
Hilary (Harry) Fisher Page was born on August 20, 1904 in Sanderstead, Surrey. He was the first child of Samuel Fisher and Lillian Maude Page. As a child he made his own wooden toys and invented games supported by his father who worked in the lumber trade.
Page attended the Shrewsbury Public School from 1918 to 1923 where he began to display his entrepreneurial skills. Interested in photography, he set up a business developing photos for the other students. After his formal education he worked in the timber trade, like his father, for several years and in 1929 married Norah Harris, a long-time friend of the family. The couple gave birth to their only daughter in 1932.[1]
Birth of Kiddicraft Company[edit]
The same year, along with several partners, Page decided to go into the toy business. The partners opened a small toy shop called Kiddicraft on Godstone Road in Purley, Surrey, south of Croydon in the London borough. Originally, Page imported wooden toys from Russia, but later began to introduce his own designs.[2] Page had become increasingly unhappy using wood as a material for children’s toys and was an early advocate of plastics as a safe and hygienic alternative.[3] In 1936, he began manufacturing Kiddicraft ‘Sensible’ toys using new injection molding technology and in 1937 these were sold under the Bri-Plax forming a new company, British Plastic Toys Ltd. Among them was an Interlocking Building Cube, for which he was awarded a British patent (British Patent Nº.529,580) in 1940.[4][5][6]
The Self-Locking Building Brick and Lego's Copy[edit]
Post WWII, Page designed and produced the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks[7], that have been described as the "original LEGO".[8] These were smaller, refined versions of the Interlocking Building Cube. Bricks could be stacked on each other and were held in place by studs on the top. The bricks also featured slits on their side that allowed panel-like doors, windows or cards to be inserted. He patented the basic design, a 2 X 4 studded brick, in 1947 (British Patent Nº 587,206). This was later followed by patents for the side slits (1949) and the baseplate (1952), designs featured in exhibits at the Brighton Toy and Model Museum.[9]
The Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick sets were first marketed in 1947. As a promotion Page and his family built large display models for the 1947 Earl’s Court Toy Fair[10]. The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in London lists the bricks among the "must have toys" of the 1940s[11]. Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred became aware of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample, and possibly drawings, given to them by the British supplier of the first injection moulding machine they had purchased. Realising their potential, Ole modified the Kiddicraft brick and in 1949 marketed his own version, The Automatic Binding Brick, that became the Lego brick in 1953.[12][13]
Page was reportedly never aware of this according to his family, and the company Lego Ole Christiansen founded expanded into Western Europe. British Lego Ltd. was set up in late 1959 and the first sets were sold the following year. Lego eventually acquired the rights to Kiddicraft in 1981. In an out-of-court settlement Lego paid UK£45,000 to the new owners of Mr. Page's company Hestair-Kiddicraft. It has subsequently removed all reference to Page and Kiddicraft from its published history.[14][15]
End of Life and Posthumous Recognition[edit]
Separated from his wife, and with the stress of his business ventures, Page took his life in 1957. He was recognised as an innovator in child education and toy design in 2007 with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the British Toy and Hobby Association.[16]
References[edit]
- ↑ Miniland Online | http://www.miniland.nl/Historie/geschiedenis/balanced/kiddicraft%20eng.html
- ↑ British Plastics Historical Society | http://plastiquarian.com/?page_id=14341
- ↑ Page, Hilary Fisher. Playtime in the First Five Years. Second edition. London: Allen & Unwin, 1953.
- ↑ Page, Hilary. “Improvements in Toy Building Blocks” UK patent 529,580. 17 Apr 1940.
- ↑ Michael M. Patte and John A. Sutterby (eds.) Celebrating 40 Years of Play Research: Connecting Our Past, Present, and Future, Volume 13, Hamilton Books UK 2016
- ↑ Rodney P. Carlisle (ed.) Encyclopedia of Play in Today's Society, Volume 1, SAGE Publications 2009
- ↑ Maaike Lauwaert, Playing outside the box – on LEGO toys and the changing world of construction play, History and Technology, Volume 24, 221-237, 2008 | https://doi.org/10.1080/07341510801900300
- ↑ https://www.inverso.pt/legos/clones/texts/kiddicraft.htm
- ↑ Brighton Toy and Model Museum | http://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk | http://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/index/Self-Locking_Building_Bricks,_Set_No.1_(Kiddicraft)
- ↑ Page‘s twin daughters, Vivienne and Geraldine play with a set of Kiddicraft K 263 Building Blocks | Twins and Skyscrapers | http://brickfetish.com/kiddicraft/twins_1947.html
- ↑ Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood collection | Must Have Toys 1940s | http://www.vam.ac.uk/moc/collections/must-toys-1940s/
- ↑ Christiansen, Godtfred. “Improvements Relating to Toy Building Sets” UK patent GB 866557. 26 Apr 1961
- ↑ Walsh, Tim, Timeless Toys: Classic Toys and the Playmakers Who Created Them, Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2005
- ↑ Jonathan Glancey, Lego: a toy of gentle genius, The Guardian 29 July 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/jul/28/children.design
- ↑ Lithgow, Adrian. “The Ghost that is Haunting Lego Land.” The Mail on Sunday. 26 July 1987 | Reproduced at: http://www.hilarypagetoys.com/Home/History/26/0
- ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClzySyzwi3k
External links[edit]
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