Taylor & Barrett, F.G.Taylor & Sons, A.Barrett & Sons

This is intended to be a general reference thread about these companies, so please feel free to join in, but give me a chance to get the basics posted first.

The three founders of the T&B partnership company started in 1920 on a part time basis, and were brothers A.R. Barrett and S. Barrett, and their brother-in-law Fred G. Taylor. The Barrett brothers worked in their regular job as casters for Britains ltd, and Fred Taylor was an engineer. By 1923 they were doing well enough to go full time, along with several others in both families. The Barrett brothers obviously knew a lot about the lead toy business from their time at Britains, and Fred Taylor's engineering expertise was used to make the moulds. S. Barrett dropped out of the business as a partner, but later re-joined as an employee. They started in a small run down building in Schofield Road, Upper Holloway, London N19, and in 1929 were doing well enough to move to a larger factory building in East Finchley.

They were doing very well until the start of World War Two, selling to wholesalers/re-packers such as Turnbull/Cetandco and Kay/Kempner family, big stores such as Selfridges and the Co-Operative (who had some big department stores back then), and their extensive zoo range was sold in zoo souvenir shops worldwide, plus they had arrangements with other lead toy companies such as Britains and Charbens for odd items.

Unfortunately their factory was bombed by the Luftwaffe in 1940, but everything possible was salvaged, and they briefly started again in another factory in North Finchley, but all toy production was stopped by the government in 1941, to concentrate on the war effort, plus several workers had been conscripted. So the partners shared out the moulds 'for safe keeping' during the war, although as there had been some arguments over the years, both men probably knew they wouldn't restart as a partnership post-war. Considering what happened to their factory, and the bombing going on all around them before it was hit, it is perhaps not surprising that T&B produced a very interesting range of Blitz related figures.  

Both of the partners re-started, independently, in 1945, Fred G. Taylor with his son-in-law Fred Squires, and son Fred Taylor Jr joining in 1947 under the business name F.G. Taylor & Sons, and the motto 'For Good Toys'. They were located at 22 Hampden Road, Upper Holloway, London N19. It is believed, but not certain, that the company closed down circa 1980.

Mr Barrett snr also re-started in 1945, with his sons Alfred and Bert under the name A. Barrett & Sons (Toys) Ltd at 9 Sonderberg Road, London N7, a small an unsuitable building for a factory, especially not one doing lead casting. The Barrett family had been supplying A Barton & Co with their doll's house furniture items since about 1953. Barton & Co had been in another small London building, but had been forced to move because of compulsory purchase for road widening in 1955, to a large modern factory at New Addington, near Croydon. Barrett & Sons were also forced to move because of compulsory purchase for redevelopment some years later, in 1970, so rented part of Barton's New Addington factory from then on. By 1982 Mr Barrett senior had long since died, and his two sons were approaching retirement, so they sold out to Bartons, who just continued making the dolls house stuff, as they were essentially a dolls house company.

After the mould share out, and the 1945 restart of now two separate companies, there were obvious gaps in both ranges, so they both had to make some new moulds. For example, B&S had the original zoo kangaroo mould, so FGT produced a new kangaroo.
It is not entirely clear who had what of all the original moulds, although most are known.
Also, during the early 1960s both companies gradually changed from lead to plastic production, in the case of some sets with some interim versions of some lead and some plastic items, plus there were a few items which were never made in plastic.

The lead T&B/FGT/B&S zoo range:

First up, their iconic Chimps tea party.
This one in a post-war FGT box:
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The grey plates of food go with this set.
The blue plates of food are pre-war T&B examples.

Post-war lead B&S elephant, baby elephant and keeper to ride.
There was also a saddle/howdah and seated kids to ride, but I don't have them.
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Zoo accessories: gate (black: pre-war, green: post-war FGT) pay booth (the blue & black probably sold with petrol pumps etc in a filling station set), turnstile, keeper with fish & bucket (adaptation of war-time Blitz figure).
The spare gates were also supplied to Britains Ltd to go with two of their wooden military buildings (made for them by Hugar).
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T&B zoo railings, shorter ones straight, longer ones curved, post-war to B&S:
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Your collection is awesome, Dave !!!!

Thankyou for sharing your great knowledge

Now for some general lead zoo animals:

Camel, Zebra/Ass, Hippo and standing Bison moulds all went to B&S post-war.
Charging bison went to FGT, and was really more suitable for wild west play than a zoo.
(Timpo also made a charging Bison, to give a little variation in a herd charging across the prairie being hunted by Cowboys or Indians.)
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T&B lead, post-war to

B&S: climbing monkey, walking ape/baboon, stork, giant tortoise, pelican
FGT: gorilla with tree, crocodile, ostrich, eagle,  

ape with ball a mistake - I now know it was made by Charbens
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More T&B lead, post-war to:
The wolf was also sold pre-war with some artic explorers, sled & huskies, & snow covered fir trees, but this set not made post-war.

B&S: grey kangaroo (original T&B kangaroo), standing bear cubs (original T&B mould), hyena, owl (copied from earlier Heyde, Germany owl, in turn copied from an even earlier Austrian cold-painted bronze owl), polar bear walking (original T&B mould), tiger (middle - new post-war B&S mould)
FGT: wolf, brown kangaroo (new post-war FGT mould), sitting bear (original T&B mould, also sold painted brown), walking bear cub (original T&B mould, also sold painted brown), tiger (right - original T&B mould, also sold painted as lioness).
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All of these original T&B moulds, post-war to B&S.
Lying lioness and lion cub also sold painted as tigers.
Identical lion cub sold by Charbens, but not known if there were two moulds, or one company produced for both.
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To end the lead zoo section, some of the above figures with a furry 'flocked' coating, almost certainly done by them by another London based company, Laing.
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Next up, plastic zoo.

Very interesting old stuff again Dave. I especially like the Ass:)

Plastic zoo

FGT Chimps tea party set +spare extra keeper,
B&S Climbing monkey
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The tea party set was all lead until 1958
1958-61 it was lead table & chairs, plastic chimps, keeper & plates
1962 onwards all plastic, except for keeper's bucket, which remained lead throughout.

2 x FGT Elephant ride set

This was a new mould plastic elephant, greatly undersized to be realistic, but it made it an affordable zoo souvenir shop toy, and made it fit in the same size box as the chimps tea party (+ same size box used for farm range blacksmith set)
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FGT 'Parrots on stand' (look like macaws to me)
I don't know how many different colour plastics were used for the parrots/macaws.
This set was previously made in lead, but the lead version is rather expensive, so I don't have one.
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B&S Llama cart ride and Camel ride sets

I don't know if the cart was ever made in plastic. If not, I suspect this item wasn't made after 1970, as I understand they stopped all metal moulding when they moved to Barton's factory at new Addington.
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FGT brown bear family in plastic, from original T&B lead moulds.
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by comparison with, B&S Polar bear family, all new moulds.
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OK, so all these bears are simplistic to the point of cartoony, but hey, THEY WERE TOYS! FOR KIDS!

Now 4 very difficult to find B&S zoo animals. It is easier to find lead examples of these.
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Plastic version of new mould FGT walking Polar bear - rare in either lead or plastic
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Now for a couple of really, really rare items - not known if made by B&S or FGT, but almost certainly one or the other.

A penguin pool and a seal pool (one section of white fencing missing on this example.
First shown with the considerably more common FGT duck pond to show size.
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Now just the penguin pool
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Now just the seal pool, shown with the normal FGT plastic seal, to show that these were really undersized, but again, they were toys!
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And finally, both pools on a Barton & Co 'Addington Zoo'.
As B&S were renting part of Barton's factory, it suggests B&S most likely made the pools.
These two pools were sold under the Barton brand name.
I know of one more item in this range, a tree with monkeys to climb
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Having looked through my existing photos of T&B/FGT/B&S farm and other stuff, I feel I need to do new photos of most of them, you'll all have to wait week or so for them, but there are a couple of existing photos which are OK, so as a taster, here are post-war FGT lead and plastic versions of the Blacksmith set:

First lead:
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Now 2 x the plastic version, although the tiny shoes are still lead. Note different colour versions of the blacksmith.
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Thank you Dave for sharing all of this knowledge with us, because specially in this field there is a lack of knowledge here.
I have some questions for you, on which you could shed you light if you want please.
What about the Britains Chimp Tea Party?
Is this their mould, or just a copy of earlier moulds from other British companies?
Secondly, i do have some Taylor models, could you tell me if they are what i think(under the pics), and what they might be worth please?
And from which year or timespan of production they might be?

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Taylor and Sons Flocked Leopard(flocking made by Laing)

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Taylor&Barrett Walking Lion

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Taylor&Barrett Sitting Lioness

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4375 Britains Tea Party(have two of them)

The Lion walking and Lioness sitting were made at least as far back as 1930 (1920s?) by T&B, and post-war by B&S.

The leopard was a pre-war T&B item painted, but this flocked version is post-war by FGT.
The flocking was done for them by a company called Laing, operating in the Ealing area of north London, 1948 onwards (to circa 1960?).

All three are worth about 15 Euro each.

The Britains Chimps tea party set had a fairly short production life, 1967-71, which is why it is fairly rare and expensive now. There are two types of packaging and some colour and other differences during this period.
The keeper had been made since 1963, although the tea party version had a hole added to his arm, to attach the chimp. The chairs were originally from the Floral garden range. The base, table and chimps were new Britains items.
Britains were really very late in the game with this set, having missed out on decades of potential sales to T&B and then FGT. I don't know of any other companies who made chimp tea party sets anywhere in the world, certainly not in the UK or US.
Does anyone know of any chimp tea party sets made in France, Germany, anywhere else?

Wow, I this this horse and blacksmith set is very interesting! How nice idea! I've never seen the other toy set like this!

Ana wrote:

Wow, I this this horse and blacksmith set is very interesting! How nice idea! I've never seen the other toy set like this!

There were two other similar blacksmith sets made by old lead companies in the UK, one by John Hill & Co, the other by a small company in Wallasey, Cheshire (north-west of England) called Roydon. A third company, Moultoy, also sold the Roydon set, presumably buying them in wholesale, and packing them in their own branded boxes, although there may have been two sets of moulds. As with so many vintage items, all the people who knew what happened probably died long ago.

Britains made a blacksmith + anvil, but didn't do a forge, in 'the old days', and the new owners of Britains made a new metal blacksmith set (1980s?)

There were several wooden blacksmith forge buildings made by various manufacturers. I'll do a separate thread of those in my collection.

So it would be possible to make a small specialist sub-collection on this theme, easily enough to fill one shelf, perhaps enough for two shelves in a typical display cabinet.

DaveScriv wrote:

Ana wrote:

Wow, I this this horse and blacksmith set is very interesting! How nice idea! I've never seen the other toy set like this!

There were two other similar blacksmith sets made by old lead companies in the UK, one by John Hill & Co, the other by a small company in Wallasey, Cheshire (north-west of England) called Roydon. A third company, Moultoy, also sold the Roydon set, presumably buying them in wholesale, and packing them in their own branded boxes, although there may have been two sets of moulds. As with so many vintage items, all the people who knew what happened probably died long ago.

Britains made a blacksmith + anvil, but didn't do a forge, in 'the old days', and the new owners of Britains made a new metal blacksmith set (1980s?)

There were several wooden blacksmith forge buildings made by various manufacturers. I'll do a separate thread of those in my collection.

So it would be possible to make a small specialist sub-collection on this theme, easily enough to fill one shelf, perhaps enough for two shelves in a typical display cabinet.

This is very interesting story!   

In the sets you've shown to us I really like the fact the blacksmith is "in action". And these tiny horseshoes are so cute.

Regarding the Britains Chimpanzee Tea Party Set - when the set was discontinued the chimps were available separately under number 1376 and title “Assorted Chipanzees”. The standing version gain a base to enable it to stand. The trio were deleted in 1985.

I obtained a Britains Tea part set cheaply because it was unboxed and didn’t have the breakers illustrated in Dave’s set.