Toys

The toy collection at Hove Museum & Art Gallery is one of the most significant in the UK. Drawn from charitable trust the National Toy Museum and Institute of Play, along with collections from Brighton Museum, Hove Museum and Preston Manor, it features almost 20,000 objects from makers around the world and across the centuries.

Celebrated collector, author and filmmaker Leslie Daiken formed the trust in 1952. From the mid 1960s, the collection was displayed at Rottingdean Grange, during which time toymaker and collector Yootha Rose acquired many new objects. When local toy importer Grozier's closed in the mid 1970s, further material was presented.

The collection

The extensive collection features toys, games and puzzles predominantly from the 19th and 20th centuries, though it also includes items dating back to the 18th century and beyond. It includes toys of every conceivable shape, size, form and function: mechanical toys, optical toys, didactic toys, clockwork toys, transport toys, action toys, construction toys and soft toys.

The collection represents both western and non-western cultures with toys ranging from mainland Europe and the Americas to Japan, India and even ancient Egypt. It also boasts a comprehensive library on the history of toys, toy making and collecting.

The highlights

Like all collections of national importance, the Brighton & Hove Museums’ collection includes a number of prestige items.

Among its prized collection of 500 dolls, it counts English poured wax dolls, Bébé Jumeau dolls, late 19th century German bisque dolls and rare 18th century portrait dolls of the royal family by master maker Pierotti. It also includes numerous dolls houses, reproducing architectural styles throughout the ages.

The clockwork toys and automata feature early examples from Germany, Britain, America and Japan. They include a leaping tiger from 1900; a drinking Chinaman circa 1860 and racing Penny Farthings from about 1890.

Other highlights include a fine selection of 19th century construction toys (precursors to their modern Lego and Meccano equivalents); Victorian educational toys for teaching numeracy, literacy, geography and botany; and rare Steiff bears. There are also early examples of toy and model trains, including a rare German ‘push along’ locomotive from 1845 through to Hornby classics.

The galleries

Designed for families and children, Hove Museum's permanent toy gallery showcases many of the above items from the collection, imaginatively presented to encourage interaction and exploration. The gallery is styled the Wizard's Attic. Its resident wizard curator, Emos V Hume, collects toys from around the world. These are then restored in the wizard's workshop (complete with a miniature toolbox made by Lewis Carroll) and displayed in his attic; thus subtly reflecting the modus operandi of a busy museum.

The gallery has been conceived and constructed from a child's perspective to bring the toys on display to life. A toy train chugs beneath the glass floor. Battalions of toy soldiers battle it out in a tin bath. A crawling tunnel runs beneath an entire street of fully furnished dolls houses. A child's bedroom is split by time: half Victorian; half modern day.

Visitors are also encouraged to play Toy Trek, a time travel game that transports the intrepid explorer on a journey through history. Here they will encounter toys throughout the ages, ranging from 17th century dolls through 1930s Disney figures to Star Wars, Game Boy and the cast of Toy Story.