Building    From 1914  To 1934

East London Toy Factory

Opened by Sylvia Pankhurst as an answer to the dozens of tiny failing workshops where women were paid a pittance. Toys were no longer being imported from Germany, so the factory employed 59 women to fill the gap. Originally they produced wooden toys and then dolls, followed by stuffed cats, dogs and bears. Sylvia took a taxi full of her wares to Selfridges new store in Oxford Street and cajoled Gordon Selfridge himself to become a stockist.

Roman Road has some interesting photos of this factory and confirms that the plaque's "babies nursery" was a creche where the women could leave their babies while they worked.

Credit for this entry to: Alan Patient of www.plaquesoflondon.co.uk

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
East London Toy Factory

Commemorated ati

East London Toy Factory

45 Norman Grove. E. Sylvia Pankhurst set up the East London Toy Factory and ...

Read More

Other Subjects

Action for Children

Action for Children

National children's charity. Founded by the Reverend Thomas Bowman Stephenson as 'The Children's Home'. Renamed 'National Children's Home' and adopted its present name in 2008. It originally provid...

Group, Benefactor, Children

2 memorials
St Vincent's Boys' Home

St Vincent's Boys' Home

St Vincent’s Home for Destitute Boys was established in 1859 at what is now Shepherd’s Bush Road, Hammersmith. It was managed by some members of the St Vincent de Paul Society. Accepted Roman Catho...

Group, Children, Social Welfare

1 memorial
Children who died in the Evelina at Guy's Hospital

Children who died in the Evelina at Guy's Hospital

See the Evelina Children's Hospital for more information.

Group, Children, Medicine

1 memorial
Marjorie Hewson

Marjorie Hewson

Nursery nurse. She worked for over forty years at Christ Church School, in Brick Lane, Spitalfields, (the area in which she grew up and lived herself). A popular character, remembered by many for h...

Person, Children, Education

1 memorial
Mr Fegan's Homes

Mr Fegan's Homes

James Fegan set up his first children's home in Deptford, South London in 1870. Others were opened in Greenwich, Southwark, Goudhurst and one in Westminster, known as the Red Lamp, which maybe was ...

Group, Children, Philanthropy, Canada

1 memorial