Britains Toy Soldiers

First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
Pen & Sword Military
An imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS

ISBN: 978 1 84884 444 5
PDF ISBN: 978 1 47388 516 5
EPUB ISBN: 978 1 47388 515 8
PRC ISBN: 978 1 47388 514 1

The right of James Opie to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

Photography by James Opie except where otherwise credited.

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing.

Design and typesetting by Henry Hyde and Juliet Arthur.
Typeset in Garamond, Gill Sans, Times, Trajan Pro and Warnock Pro.

Printed and bound in India
by Replika Press Pvt. Ltd.

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Britains first set of Life Guards in 1893 is shown to the left, opposite the figures on the right that are still in production (though currently provided with bases), now for sale mostly to tourists of London. The first set is fully discussed in pictures 19 and 19A. Between the two ‘first and present’ rows are a few of the intervening models, left to right, the standard hollowcast Life Guard, not much changed from 1897 through to 1966, the officer included from 1953, a second version of the plastic Herald Life Guard, introduced in 1955 and the plastic Eyes Right Life Guard introduced in 1968. The Herald figure is one of two variations. Here, the front right leg of the horse is lifted, whereas in the other the leg is almost touching the ground. Centre back is the least common of the various ‘Rearing horse officers’ provided for set 1 from 1894 to 1953. This second version made in 1907 is perhaps the prettiest, a conversion of the first version with a rectangular base to fit the Beiser clips (see page 69) and a movable arm instead of the original tin sword. Two years later, a completely new model of the rearing horse officer was introduced, dated 19.10.1909, which, in its undated version, lasted in set 1 right through to 1953. O

Three generations as depicted by William Hocker and Britains themselves. The Hocker figure of William Britain Senior shows set 1 to Queen Victoria, and William Britain Junior presents the Diamond Jubilee Souvenir set. Back left is Bill Hocker’s highly ingenious working model of a Britains workman casting hollowcast figures. Queen Victoria is a converted Britains nurse. To the right is the Britains model of Dennis Britain, sets 3074 and 3075, modelled from a photograph taken of him at the Britains Centenary Dinner in 1993 by Dr William C. McDade. O