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Florence Attwood
Florence Attwood (24 July 1907 – 7 April 1952) was an English toy designer and maker who became chief designer at toy manufacturer Merrythought, producing the company's first range of toys. Attwood was responsible for some of the company's most iconic designs, including the signature Merrythought bear. Deaf from the age of two, she has since been remembered as an inspirational and pioneering figure, who "overcame many challenges" to forge a successful design career. Life Florence May Attwood was born on 24 July 1907, the daughter of Walter Attwood and Sarah Ann (née Willetts). At the age of two, she contracted measles, which caused her to become deaf. She attended a school for the deaf in Manchester, where she studied design. Attwood was particularly skilled at design and dressmaking, moving into fabric design and pattern making. She worked first for the Chad Valley Toy Company, before being recruited to work for Merrythought, in Ironbridge, Shropshire.{{Cite book , last=Mi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Shropshire
Shropshire (; abbreviated SalopAlso used officially as the name of the county from 1974–1980. The demonym for inhabitants of the county "Salopian" derives from this name.) is a ceremonial county in the West Midlands of England, on the border with Wales. It is bordered by Cheshire to the north-east, Staffordshire to the east, Worcestershire to the south-east, Herefordshire to the south, and the Welsh principal areas of Powys and Wrexham to the west and north-west respectively. The largest settlement is Telford, while Shrewsbury is the county town. The county has an area of and a population of 498,073. Telford in the east and Shrewsbury in the centre are the largest towns. Shropshire is otherwise rural, and contains market towns such as Oswestry in the north-west, Market Drayton in the north-east, Bridgnorth in the south-east, and Ludlow in the south. For local government purposes the county comprises the unitary authority areas of Shropshire and Telford and Wrekin. The cou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Merrythought
Merrythought is a toy manufacturing company established in 1930 in the United Kingdom. The company specialises in soft toys, especially teddy bears. Merrythought has handmade traditional teddy bears in the World Heritage Site of Ironbridge, Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England since 1930. The company's site in Ironbridge has a small museum and shop open to the public, and is where the toys are made. The site is a former iron foundry building on the banks of the River Severn, less than half a mile (0.7 km) upstream from the world-famous Iron Bridge itself. The vicinity is known as Dale End, lying at the bottom of the Coalbrookdale valley, and falls within the wider Ironbridge Gorge World Heritage Site. The origin of the firm's name is uncertain but possibly derives from an archaic word for " wishbone" – the company has used a wishbone as an emblem from 1930. History Merrythought was founded in 1930 by Gordon Holmes and George H. Laxton, with the first catalogue in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chad Valley (toy Brand)
Chad Valley is a brand of toys in the United Kingdom owned by Sainsbury's. History The company has its roots in a printing business established by Anthony Bunn Johnson in Birmingham in the early 19th century. Under the management of his son Joseph and grandson Alfred the company moved to the suburb of Harborne, in the valley of a stream called the Chad Brook, giving its name to the Chad Valley district, from which the company name is derived. Chad Valley made a decision to expand their range to soft toys before World War I. They mass-produced their new Teddy bears in Harborne In 1938 the company received a royal warrant as 'Toymakers to H.M. The Queen'. When Princess Elizabeth acceded to the throne in 1952 the warrant was changed to read 'Toymakers to H.M. Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother'. The company moved away from manufacturing toys in the Second World War. Instead they produced goods to help the war effort such as wooden instrument cases, cases for the barrels of a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ironbridge
Ironbridge is a riverside village in the borough of Telford and Wrekin, Shropshire, England. Located on the bank of the River Severn, at the heart of the Ironbridge Gorge, it lies in the civil parish of The Gorge. Ironbridge developed beside, and takes its name from, the Iron Bridge, a cast iron bridge that was built in 1779. History The area around Ironbridge is described by those promoting it as a tourist destination as the "birthplace of the Industrial Revolution". This description is based on the idea that Abraham Darby perfected the technique of smelting iron with coke, in Coalbrookdale, allowing much cheaper production of iron. However, the industrial revolution did not begin in any one place. Darby's iron smelting was but one small part of this generalised revolution and was soon superseded by the great iron-smelting areas. However, the bridge – being the first of its kind fabricated from cast iron, and one of the few which have survived to the present day&n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eaton's
The T. Eaton Company Limited, later known as Eaton's, was a Canadian department store chain that was once the largest in the country. It was founded in 1869 in Toronto by Timothy Eaton, an immigrant from what is now Northern Ireland. Eaton's grew to become a retail and social institution in Canada, with stores across the country, buying-offices around the globe, and a mail-order catalog that was found in the homes of most Canadians. A changing economic and retail environment in the late twentieth century, along with mismanagement, culminated in the chain's bankruptcy in 1999. Eaton's pioneered several retail innovations. In an era when haggling for goods was the norm, the chain proclaimed "We propose to sell our goods for CASH ONLY – In selling goods, to have only one price." In addition, it had the long-standing slogan "Goods Satisfactory or Money Refunded." Early years In 1869, Timothy Eaton sold his interest in a small dry-goods store in the market town of St. Marys, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Royal Mail
Royal Mail Group Limited, trading as Royal Mail, is a British postal service and courier company. It is owned by International Distribution Services. It operates the brands Royal Mail (letters and parcels) and Parcelforce Worldwide (parcels). Formed in 2001, the company used the name Consignia for a brief period but changed it soon afterwards. Prior to this date, Royal Mail and Parcelforce were (along with Post Office Counters Ltd) part of the Post Office, a UK state-owned enterprise the history of which is summarised below. Long before it came to be a company name, the 'Royal Mail' brand had been used by the General Post Office to identify its distribution network (which over the centuries included horse-drawn mail coaches, horse carts and hand carts, ships, trains, vans, motorcycle combinations and aircraft). The company provides mail collection and delivery services throughout the UK. Letters and parcels are deposited in post or parcel boxes, or are collected in bul ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antiques Roadshow
''Antiques Roadshow'' is a British television programme broadcast by the BBC in which antiques appraisers travel to various regions of the United Kingdom (and occasionally in other countries) to appraise antiques brought in by local people (generally speaking). It has been running since 1979, based on a 1977 documentary programme. The series has spawned many international versions throughout Europe, North America and other countries with the same TV format. The programme is hosted by Fiona Bruce and in 2024 was in its 47th series. History The programme began as a BBC documentary that aired in 1977, about a London auction house doing a tour of the West Country in England. The pilot roadshow was recorded in Hereford on 17 May 1977 and presented by contributor Bruce Parker, a presenter of the news/current affairs programme '' Nationwide'', and antiques expert Arthur Negus, who had previously worked on a similarly themed show, called '' Going for a Song''. The pilot was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Victoria And Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum (abbreviated V&A) in London is the world's largest museum of applied arts, decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 2.8 million objects. It was founded in 1852 and named after Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort, Prince Albert. The V&A is in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, in an area known as "Albertopolis" because of its association with Prince Albert, the Albert Memorial, and the major cultural institutions with which he was associated. These include the Natural History Museum, London, Natural History Museum, the Science Museum (London), Science Museum, the Royal Albert Hall and Imperial College London. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. As with other national British museums, entrance is free. The V&A covers and 145 galleries. Its collection spans 5,000 years of art, from ancient history to the present day, from the c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1907 Births
Events January * January 14 – 1907 Kingston earthquake: A 6.5 Mw earthquake in Kingston, Jamaica, kills between 800 and 1,000. February * February 9 – The " Mud March", the first large procession organised by The National Union of Women's Suffrage Societies ( NUWSS), takes place in London. * February 11 – The French warship ''Jean Bart'' sinks off the coast of Morocco. * February 12 – The steamship ''Larchmont'' collides with the ''Harry Hamilton'' in Long Island Sound; 183 lives are lost. * February 16 – SKF, a worldwide mechanical parts manufacturing brand (mainly, bearings and seals), is founded in Gothenburg, Sweden. * February 21 – The English mail steamship ''Berlin'' is wrecked off the Hook of Holland; 142 lives are lost. * February 24 – The Austrian Lloyd steamship ''Imperatrix'', from Trieste to Bombay, is wrecked on Cape of Crete and sinks; 137 lives are lost. March * March ** The steamship ''Congo'' collide ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1952 Deaths
Events January–February * January 26 – Cairo Fire, Black Saturday in Kingdom of Egypt, Egypt: Rioters burn Cairo's central business district, targeting British and upper-class Egyptian businesses. * February 6 ** Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, becomes monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and the British Dominions: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, South Africa, Dominion of Pakistan, Pakistan and Dominion of Ceylon, Ceylon. The princess, who is on a visit to Kenya when she hears of the death of her father, King George VI, aged 56, takes the regnal name Elizabeth II. ** In the United States, a Artificial heart, mechanical heart is used for the first time in a human patient. *February 7 – New York City announces its first crosswalk devices to be installed. * February 14–February 25, 25 – The 1952 Winter Olympics, Winter Olympics are held in Oslo, Norway. * February 15 – The State Funeral of King Ge ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
English Designers
English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish term for non-Amish, regardless of ethnicity * English studies, the study of English language and literature Media * ''English'' (2013 film), a Malayalam-language film * ''English'' (novel), a Chinese book by Wang Gang ** ''English'' (2018 film), a Chinese adaptation * ''The English'' (TV series), a 2022 Western-genre miniseries * ''English'' (play), a 2022 play by Sanaz Toossi People and fictional characters * English (surname), a list of people and fictional characters * English Fisher (1928–2011), American boxing coach * English Gardner (born 1992), American track and field sprinter * English McConnell (1882–1928), Irish footballer * Aiden English, a ring name of Matthew Rehwoldt (born 1987), American former professional wrestler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
