Toys, Games and Our Ancestor's Childhood

   With the festive season just around the corner many children will be eagerly anticipating what games and gadgets they’ll receive in their 21^st century stockings. Have you ever wondered what kind of toys our Victorian ancestors would have been thrilled to receive on Christmas morning?

    Victorians required their youngsters to be educated as they played, enabling them to develop skills beneficial in adulthood. Building blocks encouraged construction challenges and bricks with the addition of letters or numbers advanced a child’s spelling and numeracy. Push-along toy animals were designed to teach little ones to walk whilst rocking horses were considered useful in preparing boys for the riding skills needed in later life. Even Sunday playtime was restricted to those toys with biblical connections such as the Noah’s Ark.

   Card games provided both education and social interaction and were regularly taught to children by their parents or nannies. Dedicated playing cards for children were prevalent by the mid 19^th century when they were decorated with colourful pictures and educational symbols. Happy Familes, Old Maid and Snap! were themed with illustrations including circus acts, jungle animals and nursery rhymes opening up a child’s world with these visual images.

 The skill involved in playing the game of Marbles proved particularly popular. Dating back to cave dwelling early man, marbles in the form of small pebbles or clay balls were first found in the tombs and pyramids of the Ancient Egyptians and on Native American burial grounds. Taking their name from the materials from which they were once made, marbles have also been crafted from metal, glass, ceramics and agates.  During the Victorian era, glass blown marbles took on a more elaborate appearance. From self coloured speckled balls to those incorporating a colourful twist, the array of examples was endless resulting in a whole host of names - including keepsies, aggies, taws, and bombsies -given to their variation in sizes and their role within the game.  

      The pleasure of creating mini theatres or staging puppet performances has proved to be an enduring form of entertainment throughout the centuries. Puppet theatre performed on makeshift stages was enjoyed as far back as the Ancient Greeks but, in Britain, it was not until the introduction of Punch and Judy that their popularity really took hold. Eventually, independent craftsmen and factory manufacturers created smaller versions to be played with by children at home. Do you remember entertaining your parents and siblings with your own grand theatre productions?

   From toy soldiers to teddies, dolls to dominoes, the list of toys and games played by our ancestors is endless and provides a great way of exploring an era completely different from the one our techno kids of today are experiencing.

  If you’ve inherited an heirloom from your ancestor’s childhood, find out more about this item by visiting one of Britain’s numerous Museums’ of Childhood. Ask other relatives if they own early childhood toys and consider looking back though old family diaries where descriptions of games may well have been mentioned especially in entries made around the Christmas period.

   Open everyday from 10am to 17.45pm, admission to the V&A’s Museum of Childhood is free. Even a simple visit to their website will have you fascinated with its detailed histories of wax dolls and explanations of the occupational characters used to illustrate the Happy Families card games. 

Also - Edinburgh Museum of Childhood, West Wales Museum of Childhood and The Highland Museum of Childhood.