[BITList] Manufacturer of toys, Frank Hornby

[John Feltham]

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Hornby,  Frank  (1863-1936), toy manufacturer, was born at 77 Copperas Hill, Liverpool, on 15 May 1863, the only son of the three children of John Hornby, provisions dealer, and his wife, Martha Thomlinson. He was educated at local council schools until he obtained employment as a shipping clerk, working with several companies until he was thirty-eight. In 1887 he married Clara Walker, daughter of William Godefroy, mariner and customs worker. They had a daughter who died at fourteen, and two sons (who both became directors of Meccano Ltd).

Always interested in mechanical devices, experimenting in his home workshop Hornby developed the Meccano construction idea by using metal strips perforated with holes at half inch intervals and assembled with screws and nuts. Wheels, rods, cranks, and other components were added so that, with instruction manuals, boys (girls were never specified in the advertising) could build the illustrated models. Hornby obtained his first patent in 1901; the following year sets, produced in rented premises and marketed as 'Mechanics Made Easy', appeared in Liverpool toyshops. In 1908 Meccano Ltd was registered and, within five years, manufacturing plants were established in Paris, Berlin, Barcelona, and Elizabeth in New Jersey. The success of Hornby's invention was due largely to the principle of gradation from simple sets to larger ones with more complicated mechanisms. Over many years Meccano became widely used by designers to demonstrate ideas useful in mechanical research.

In 1914 Meccano Ltd moved to a purpose-built factory at Binns Road in Liverpool which by 1928 employed over 1200 people supplying Meccano sets to agents and distributors all over the world, including the Soviet Union and China. To publicize Hornby's business, Meccano Magazine was founded in 1916 and continued publication (usually monthly in up to seventeen languages) for over fifty years.

Prior to 1914 clockwork toys had been manufactured mainly in Germany and Hornby shrewdly foresaw that, with the war over, there would be a demand for such toys made in England. In 1920 Meccano Ltd produced the first Hornby model trains, replicas of British trains with authentic colours and lettering used by the railway companies of the time. All kinds of rolling-stock, signal-boxes, stations, level-crossing gates, complementary buildings, and scenery were added to increase the realism of railway modelling. Clockwork was eventually replaced by low-voltage electric power to drive the engines and automate switching-points on the railway track. In 1933 the 'Dinky' range was introduced, with miniatures of cars, lorries, trucks, motorcycles, farm machinery, rural animals, and other models. When Hornby died at the height of his company's success, the annual output of his factories totalled millions of Meccano sets, Hornby trains, and Dinky toys, which had become household names throughout the world. By then 2000 employees were engaged at Binns Road, made up of management, designers, production workers, and marketing and advertising specialists.

In 1931 Hornby won the House of Commons seat of Everton for the Conservative Party. It was a short and not very effective venture; he resigned before the 1935 general election because of business pressures, declining health, and failing eyesight. Hornby died on 21 September 1936 at the David Lewis Northern Hospital, Liverpool. He was survived by his wife.

Meccano continued to be made in Liverpool until 1979, when falling sales caused the factory to be shut down. The firm was bought by Nikko, a Japanese toy manufacturer, in 2000, and Meccano sets were still being manufactured in France and Argentina.

A. A. Warden 

Janette Ryan 

Sources  M. P. Gould, Frank Hornby (1915) + F. Hornby, 'The life story of Meccano', Meccano Magazine (March 1917-April 1922) + Liverpool Daily Post (18 Aug 1928) + Liverpool Daily Post (12 Sept 1935) + Liverpool Daily Post (21 Sept 1936) + Liverpool Daily Post (11 Nov 1936) + The Times (22 Sept 1936) + B. N. Love, Model building in Meccano (1971) + B. Huntington, Along Hornby lines (1976) + P. Randall, The products of Binns Road (1981)
Likenesses  photograph, repro. in K. D. Brown, The British toy business: a history since 1700 (1996) [see illus.]
Wealth at death  £231,536 17s. 1d.: probate, 5 Nov 1936, CGPLA Eng. & Wales




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