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During the 1920s and 1930s it became the biggest toy manufacturer in Britain and produced three of the most popular lines of toys in the twentieth century: Meccano, Hornby Model Railways and Dinky Toys. Financial problems beset the company in the early 1960s and Meccano Ltd was taken over by Lines Bros Ltd in 1964.
History
In 1901 Frank Hornby, a clerk from Liverpool, England, invented a new construction toy called "Mechanics Made Easy", which soon became known as Meccano. To manufacture and distribute Meccano, Hornby needed to raise capital to invest in factory and plant, and this resulted in the establishment of Meccano Ltd in 1908, with Hornby as the sole proprietor. A factory was built in West Derby Road in Liverpool and the company began producing Meccano sets for sale across Great Britain.
New linesIn 1909 Meccano Ltd added to its range by launching the "Hornby System of Mechanical Demonstration". This was an educational set Hornby had created for use in schools which included a 44 page manual, showing all dimensions in centimetres. However, it was not a commercial success and it was discontinued after five years. This was the first use of the Hornby name, which later was to become synonymous with the company's Hornby Dublo 00 gauge model railway system. By 1910 Meccano was exported world-wide, and its success prompted Meccano Ltd to expand its operations. In 1912, Hornby and his son, Roland, formed Meccano (France) Ltd in Paris to manufacture Meccano, and an office was opened in Berlin, Germany where Märklin began to manufacture Meccano under licence. Meccano factories were also established in Spain and Argentina. In 1912 Hornby started importing clockwork motors from Märklin, but when the supply from Germany stopped after the outbreak of World War I in 1914, he began manufacturing his own clockwork motors in Liverpool. Up to this point Meccano was being manufactured in England at the small factory in West Derby Road, Liverpool, but it soon became apparent that it could not meet the growing demand for Meccano, and in 1914 a new factory was built in Binns Road, Liverpool. The Binns Road factory became the company headquarters for over 60 years. In 1920 the company started to produce 0 gauge model railways, and this production line continued into the 1960s. In 1922, Meccano Ltd opened a factory in Elizabeth, New Jersey where it produced its building sets for the North American market. In 1927 it started producing clockwork lithographed tinplate 0 gauge trains there as well. However, in 1929, it sold its New Jersey factory to the A. C. Gilbert Company, whose similar Erector Set toy was popular in the United States, and Meccano's trains and construction sets disappeared from the U.S. market by 1930.
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