SUTCLIFFE TOY BOATS
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| VINTAGE TOY BOATS |
They were well-made mechanical toys with a useful guarantee of a quick spring replacement in case of any later motor malfunction. Several smallish mechanical speedboats and cruisers were available in the shops, probably the most impressive being the generally larger, and a little more expensive, Hornby products.
The late Kenneth Sutcliffe, the son of the founder of Sutcliffe Pressings, ran the company after his father's death for many years.
At one time the internationally famous Liverpool company of Meccano turned to toy boat manufacture and became a business rival of Sutcliffe's. Unmoved by the competition, Ken Sutcliffe, who was keenly interested in the firm's Hornby Trains, had nothing but praise for the quality of these Meccano products.
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| VINTAGE TOY BOATS |
Sutcliffe Pressings was founded in Horsforth, on the outskirts of the city of Leeds in 1885 by the young engineer William Sutcliffe, who was only twenty years of age at the time! The company's mission was to serve surrounding factories and mills with any sheet metal requirements, carrying out repairs and servicing of machinery.
They also manufactured oilcans and simple domestic and photographic utensils for use in commercial darkrooms in developing and washing photographic plates and papers.
"When the photographic trade changed, through the introduction of roll films and 'snapshot' cameras," explained Kenneth Sutcliffe to me during one of my visits to his factory. "Orders slackened on this particular side of the business and my father decided that there was a demand for toys. Toy imports from Germany had obviously finished with the outbreak of war with Germany in 1914.
They were slow in returning again after the Armistice of 1918. Anti-German feeling in Britain was still high when Sutcliffe's began their entry into toy production in 1920S.
The first toy boats were small battleships that were fitted with the simplest hot air engine known, a variation of the 'pop-pop' engine of those cheaply made tin plate penny-toy boats that used to come from Germany and Japan. The action was the same, but needed to be more powerful and to be quieter in operation.
Battleships sailed along smoothly and certainly didn't 'pop-pop'! Even so, this type of propulsion was a little on the slow side and the decision was soon taken to turn to clockwork mechanisms.
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| VINTAGE TOY BOATS |
every toy boat made afterwards had a clockwork motor fitted
In the 1930s they issue a two-foot long cabin cruiser which was powered by two flat batteries.
This was the largest product ever. It obviously proved too expensive for the lean years of the 1930s and manufacture was soon discontinued. In the post-World War II years they also issued a battery-powered boat. These were the only non- mechanical boats except for a sailboat produced.
Basically, this toy consisted of a tin plate hull, instead of the normal wooden hull found on these toys, having a wooden mast and fabric sails. Just a typical simple 'seaside' toy sailing yacht that never really took off commercially! Now it has become something of a collectors' item!"
The firm later produced other submarine toys based on their 'Unda- Wunda', the 'Nautilus' that commemorated the Walt Disney film version of Jules Verne's '20,000 Leagues Under the Sea', and their own rocket-equipped 'Sea Wolf.
They were well-made toys that would dive realistically and then resurface. Sutcliffe made quality toys at very reasonable prices.
Sutcliffe's closed down in the 1980s, a particularly bad time for all the toy manufacturers of the Western world having to face keen competition from their Far Eastern counterparts.
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| VINTAGE TOY BOATS |
Their toy boats had, of course, quickly been elevated to the ranks of collectibles since production had ceased.
Kenneth Sutcliffe, a well-respected businessman who was noted for the constant high quality of his company's products, peacefully passed away in the autumn of 1999 at his North Yorkshire home.
Collectibles Coach
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