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CHAPTER 1
Origins
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Founding fathers: Holmes and Laxton
EARLY IN THE Twentieth Century, a business partnership was formed by two Yorkshire men, William Gordon Holmes (generally known as Gordon) and George H. Laxton. Their business, a worsted spinning firm called Holmes, Laxton & Co., was based at Vale Mills, Oakworth. Oakworth is a Pennine village in the heart of Brontë country, about four miles from Keighley in West Yorkshire. Previous studies of Merrythought have traced the origins of the Holmes/Laxton partnership back to 1919 but there is strong evidence to support an earlier date. Stored in the archives at Bradford Industrial Museum are records about Holmes, Laxton & Co. (relating to the warping book and inventory of Vale Mills) which cover the period 1914 to 1960, proving irrefutably that the partnership began at least five years earlier than is commonly supposed. Furthermore, an even earlier date of 1907 is given by Laxtons, a Yorkshire-based company producing high quality yarns for upholstery and clothing, which is run today by the great-grandson of George H. Laxton. Having celebrated its centenary in 2007, Laxtons published an article about the company's history on its website, in which 1907 is given as the year that George H. Laxton and Gordon Holmes formed their worsted spinning firm. This date is further supported by a brief history of the Holmes family, compiled by family members for their personal interest, in which 1907 is given as the year Gordon Holmes teamed up with George Laxton. Given these facts, it is safe to assume that Holmes and Laxton were in business together a fair bit earlier than has previously been believed.
A few years here or there may seem unimportant, except that by establishing its origins prior to 1914, a compelling explanation for the firm's success becomes apparent. That reason was the advent of the First World War (1914 to 1918). During the war years, the Yorkshire wool industry was stretched to capacity making uniforms for soldiers at the Front. Put bluntly, business would have been booming while the war was raging across Europe, but by 1919 demand was waning. (There was nothing improper in Holmes and Laxton doing well during the war years, quite the contrary in fact, since by providing wool cloth for the nation they were performing a vital function. Furthermore, Gordon Holmes played an active role in the war, enlisting in 1915 and seeing action at the Battle of Cambrai, the first encounter in which tanks played a pivotal role. I have been unable to discover if Laxton fought in the war but given his age – he was 37 at the start of the war – and the importance of his occupation, I feel the likelihood is that he did not).
The new partners brought different skills to the enterprise – Laxton provided the technical expertise while Holmes had the financial acumen. George Laxton was older than Gordon Holmes by eight years but this seniority was not reflected in the name of the business, with Holmes preceding Laxton. Ordinarily in business partnerships an age difference of eight years would not seem great but, assuming the 1907 start date to be correct, Laxton at the time would have been 30 years old while Holmes was just 22. He was doubtless very astute for his age but even so, Laxton's age and experience could have led him to expect first billing in the company's name. Of course, it might be that the decision was made purely for alphabetical reasons or on the toss of a coin, but it seems probable that Gordon Holmes provided the greater part of the start-up capital and therefore wanted his name to come first. Coming from a relatively prosperous family with interests in brewing and farming, he would have found it easier to raise the necessary capital than George Laxton, son of a retired policeman, who worked as manager of a spinning business before the inauguration of Holmes, Laxton & Co.
From wool to toys: Clifton Rendle and Henry Janisch
During the early years of Holmes, Laxton & Co., the company created and sold worsted, a firmly twisted wool yarn. Then, a little before the outbreak of the First World War, they started to create yarn from imported mohair, using a technology they had developed with local weavers. Business was good for a time, with the war creating an insatiable demand for Yorkshire wool, but with the 1920s came a decline in the market for mohair cloth. This affected Holmes, Laxton & Co. because the weavers to whom they sold their yarn were struggling to find enough business to keep them afloat. One of these customers in particular, a Huddersfield plush weaving business called Dyson Hall & Co., was experiencing great difficulty, so Holmes and Laxton stepped in. They took the somewhat radical step of buying Dyson Hall and then set about finding a new market for the firm's woven mohair.
By lucky chance, the sales director at Dyson Hall was acquainted with a certain Clifton James Rendle, a 39-year-old First World War veteran who managed the Chad Valley Wrekin Toy Works in Wellington, Shropshire. It can have escaped no one's notice that many Chad Valley toys were made from mohair, a material Holmes and Laxton had in abundance. Clearly, here was an opportunity to manufacture something that had an established market. Rendle had taken up his position with Chad Valley in Wellington around 1925, having previously worked for the same firm's Birmingham factory. For reasons unknown, Rendle now felt ready to move on so when he was approached by Holmes and Laxton to head up their new toy-making venture, he agreed.
When Clifton Rendle left Chad Valley to set up Merrythought, several experienced workers chose to move with him. This says something about him both as a man and a manager, because in those days it required a leap of faith to voluntarily leave secure employment with an established company in order to join a startup operation. Those who accompanied him when he moved to Merrythought clearly trusted his judgement, and must have enjoyed working with him sufficiently to justify taking the risk.
Since Rendle played a pivotal role in the company's early years, it is worth taking a closer look at him. Although there is not an abundance of information available, there is enough to piece together a sketchy portrait of his personality and abilities. He was born in Fulham in 1891 and his parents – father Frederick, a signwriter, and mother Emily – had three other children. As a skilled tradesman, his father's position in class-conscious, late Nineteenth-Century society would have been somewhere between genteel working class and aspirational lower middle class. This view is borne out by the occupations listed for the Rendles' nearest neighbours in the census of 1901: there are clerks working variously for solicitors, shipbrokers and general commercial organisations; a manageress of a coffee house; a ship's steward; and a china shop assistant. All these occupations, including signwriting, required at least a veneer of refinement as well as the ability to read, write and do basic arithmetic. Thus Rendle's background may have been humble but he would have been equipped with the skills needed to advance in society.
In November 1914, at the age of 23, Clifton Rendle went to France as a private in the North Somerset Yeomanry where he saw action in some of the bloodiest battles ever fought by British troops. In December 1916 he was plucked from the ranks to become a junior officer, joining the Rifle Brigade as a second lieutenant. Such promotions were unusual but not unheard of; at the time, young officers were being slain in such vast numbers that it was necessary to find suitable replacements amongst the other ranks. His superiors clearly thought he was officer material and believed he could lead men in highly challenging circumstances. A further promotion, in June 1918, to the rank of first lieutenant, demonstrates that their confidence in him had not been misplaced.
Although it is unclear what his occupation was prior to 1914, Rendle was living in Weston-Super-Mare when he enlisted. It is possible that during this time he met and was employed by another Weston resident, Henry Swinburne Johnson, one of the Johnson brothers running Chad Valley. Speculation aside, what is known for certain is that in 1917, one year before the war ended, Rendle married Elsie Beatrice Chillcott in Bristol. The couple had two children – Catherine Mavis, born in 1918, and Beryl, born in 1924. (Catherine was to play an important, though indirect, role in Merrythought's history.) Furthermore evidence that Rendle was employed by Chad Valley no later than November 1922, exists on a Chad Valley patent application of that date, for 'a sound producing device ... operated from the legs' for use in dolls, toy animals and puppets. The presence of his name on the application suggests he was already a key employee with the firm, and this in turn would suggest he had started working for them some time before 1922.
In all likelihood, had Holmes and Laxton not secured Rendle's services, they would have struggled to get their toy-making venture off the ground. Rendle's own invaluable experience aside, the team of trained workers that followed him (amongst whom was Florence Attwood, Merrythought's first designer whose background is examined in Chapter 3) was vital for the success of the new company. Furthermore, the presence of Rendle may well have persuaded Henry Clarence Janisch, also an experienced toy professional, to defect to Merrythought. Janisch had formerly been responsible for sales at J.K. Farnell, a successful Acton-based toy manufacturer which, in 1908, created the first British teddy bear. Janisch's background has proved harder to trace than Rendle's but some information has come to light; when he joined Merrythought he was 37 years old and living in London with his wife, Marion and their 12-year-old son, Duncan. The nationality of Janisch's father is unknown but Janisch himself was born in London's West Ham and moved to Surrey when he was a small boy following the remarriage of his mother. Whether his father died or his parents divorced is unclear.
Both Rendle and Janisch were created directors of the new company, with Rendle in Coalbrookdale looking after production, and Janisch handling sales from the company's showroom at 113, Holborn. Although both were to play a critical role in getting Merrythought off the ground, Rendle was the man on the spot and as such was responsible for driving momentum and setting the tone of the new business.
With the key personnel in place, it was time to find suitable premises for the business and since Rendle lived in Wellington, it made sense to look for something in that locality. Operations began in hired rooms at The Station Hotel in Wellington, until more suitable premises were found at a promising site in Coalbrookdale, a small town situated just a few miles from Wellington. Hailed by many as the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, Coalbrookdale is known today as Ironbridge. It was here, in 1709, that Abraham Darby first devised the revolutionary process of smelting iron with coke, an innovation that led to the area becoming the most important iron-making centre in the world. Seventy years later, the town attracted further attention when Darby's grandson, Abraham Darby III, built the famous Iron Bridge over the River Severn.
In September 1930 Merrythought was incorporated at Companies House with a nominal capital of £5,000, and production began with a workforce of twenty. Then in February 1931 Merrythought moved into the permanent premises at the site of the old Coalbrookdale iron foundry on the banks of the River Severn. Redolent with history, it is easy to imagine how the site would have provided an inspiring location in which to start up a new business enterprise. However, it seems at least one of the parties involved may have harboured doubts about the venture's ultimate success, because Rendle chose not to move from his home in Wellington until 1934, four years after Merrythought was launched. Only when the business was firmly established did he relocate the few miles from Haygate Road, Wellington to Oswald House, Church Road, Coalbrookdale. Even then, though, the move was temporary because Rendle was back in Haygate Road by 1936 and there he remained until his death in 1949, so perhaps he simply preferred living in Wellington.
Why Merrythought?
Until now, nobody has been able to come up with a plausible explanation for the choice of the new company's name. It undoubtedly has an appealing, child-friendly ring to it, but then so do many other words that might have been chosen. In his book The Magic of Merrythought, author John Axe states that nobody remembers why the name was chosen. That may be so, but back in 1939 Clifton Rendle was able to give a very lucid explanation to the trade publication, Games and Toys. Apparantly, several names had originally been suggested but all were eliminated after Rendle came across the line, 'Tis a merry thought' whilst reading a volume of Shakespeare.
Of course, it is fairly well known that 'merrythought' is an old-fashioned, alternative name for the wishbone, the forked bone lying between the breast and neck of a chicken or other fowl. Since Roman times the wishbone has been associated with fortune, and since the Seventeenth Century, perhaps even earlier, the custom of two people pulling this bone with their little fingers has been thought to bring good luck to the one who receives the larger part when the bone breaks. It seems that Rendle liked the line from Shakespeare and its implied suggestion of good fortune so much that he decided Merrythought should be the name of the fledgling toy company. After all, with the mohair spinners' and weavers' businesses in decline, they needed all the help they could get.
Shakespearian quotations aside, however, there is a strong likelihood that both Gordon Holmes and Rendle himself already knew of other businesses that used the Merrythought name. Although Gordon Holmes' family lived in Bingley in Yorkshire, they had a second home in Udimore, a village in East Sussex, where they spent much of their time. The nearest town to Udimore is Rye, located just three miles away. According to Rye Castle Museum, a gift shop called The Merrythought existed in the town for several decades and was there in the 1920s, just before Merrythought began producing toys. As a regular visitor to the Rye area, Holmes may well have been familiar with the shop. As for Rendle, as an inhabitant of Wellington, there is a strong probability that he knew of a café called The Merry Thought which had opened in the town in the late 1920s. He must have been aware of the café and possibly even enjoyed a meal there occasionally. So it seems that the origins of the Merrythought name came from Shakespeare, perhaps with a little help from a small town gift shop and a provincial café.
Keeping it in the family
Merrythought has frequently been referred to in the press as a third generation family business, a phrase that suggests an uninterrupted succession from founding father to son, and then on again to his son. While this is true in essence, it's not quite as clear cut as it sounds. For one thing, the Laxtons – one half of the two founding dynasties – did not play a prolonged role in the company's rich history. George H. Laxton died in 1956 and according to his grandson, John Laxton, the Laxton family's interest in Merrythought faded away some time after that. Even before then, however, neither Holmes or Laxton involved themselves in the day-to-day running of Merrythought. Having secured seasoned toy professionals Rendle and Janisch to guide their enterprise, Holmes and Laxton focused on their other business interests. This assertion is supported by Kenneth D. Brown who, while paying tribute in his book The British Toy Industry to Walter Lines of the famous Lines Brothers company, also acknowledges 'more modest empire-builders such as A.C. Janisch (sic) and C. J. Rendle at Merrythought'. The point is that Janisch and Rendle are described as the empire-builders, not Holmes and Laxton.
While the Laxton interest in Merrythought gradually diminished, the reverse was true of the Holmes family, although it was not until the late 1940s that one of them became seriously involved in its day-to-day running. In 1936, Henry Janisch left Merrythought for reasons as yet unknown; Companies House records state he retired but since he was 43 at the time, that seems unlikely. Following Janisch's departure, Rendle was joined by William Leo Hirst, the son-in-law of Mr Dyson, from Dyson Hall & Co. This hierarchy continued unchanged for over a decade until Gordon Holmes' oldest son, Bernard Trayton Holmes (commonly known as Trayton) came to work at Merrythought in the late 1940s. Some accounts say he joined in 1948 while others put it at 1949; the latter date would certainly make sense because that was the year that Clifton Rendle, the firm's existing Managing Director, died.
According to Oliver Holmes, current MD of Merrythought and son of Trayton, his father had been destined for a career in the Yorkshire textile industry but then the Second World War intervened. The war turned things topsy-turvy for many people and in its aftermath it was not uncommon for individuals to find their lives following paths they had not expected to take. Thus it was for Trayton Holmes who moved from Yorkshire to set up his career and family life in Shropshire, and thus it was that almost twenty years after it had been founded, Merrythought truly became a family-run business. For although his father co-founded the company, it is really from Trayton's arrival onwards that the Merrythought story can be said to have been shaped by the forceful, enterprising, intriguing and occasionally eccentric Holmes family.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Merrythought Teddy Bears"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Kathy Martin.
Excerpted by permission of Pen and Sword Books Ltd.
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