Keystone of Boston: the history of the firm which made Keystone dollhouses

Earlier this year, my fellow blogger Florine and I collaborated on writing about Keystone dolls houses for the Dolls Houses Past and Present online magazine. Florine has an extensive collection of Keystone dolls houses, and she presented a chronology of the designs and features, showing catalogue pages and photos of her dolls houses. I researched the firm itself.

The older editions of the DHPP magazine are only available to members, so I like to republish my articles here too. And I've recently acquired a set of miniature model buildings which are probably Keystone - the garage is labelled 'Keystone Garage', and the houses look like full-size Keystone dolls houses. So it seems a good time to republish my history of the Keystone company, and I'll show the model houses in my next post. Not everyone will be interested in detailed research, I know, so feel free to skim through and look at the catalogue pages and ads, and wait for the mini buildings!

Jacrim
According to Zillner and Cooper’s Antique and Collectible Dollhouses and Their Furnishings, the Keystone Manufacturing Company was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, USA in the 1920s by Chester Rimmer and Arthur Jackson. First called Jacrim, it produced junior grade movie projectors. However, the List of Toy Companies at antiquetoys.com and Seaworthy Boats, Jacrim Manufacturing both show that Jacrim actually produced boats – Chester Rimmer (b. 1899) and Arthur Jackson were both MIT graduates, in Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering.

The Boston City Directory for 1925 lists Jacrim Manufacturing at 3 Cross St, Malden. David W. Rimmer was president, John W Rimmer was secretary, and Chester A Rimmer was treasurer. According to Seaworthy Boats, Chester Rimmer’s older brothers were coopers and cabinet makers by trade. Arthur Jackson was not an office-holder in the company, and apparently left Jacrim to join the American Enka Company, which produced rayon, in 1929.

The 1926 Boston City Directory entry for Jacrim Manufacturing is very informative, showing that it was incorporated in July 1922 with $10,000 capital. Jacrim has now moved from Malden to 615 Albany Street, Boston. Chester Rimmer is still the treasurer, but his brothers no longer hold positions within the company (whatever David Rimmer’s trade was, he became a freight traffic manager). Instead, the president is Isadore Marks and the secretary is Benjamin Marks.

Marks Bros

Who were Isadore and Benjamin Marks? I looked them up in the same 1926 Boston directory, and found that Isadore Marks was president of Marks Bros Company (address rear 288 A Street, Boston) and also president of Jacrim Manufacturing. Benjamin Marks was treasurer of the Marks Bros Company, and secretary of Jacrim Manufacturing Company. The entry for Marks Bros Company states that it was incorporated in 1915 with $80,000 capital, and the other office holder, the secretary, is Rebecca Marks. They are toy manufacturers.

Furthermore, there are several entries for Keystone as well in this 1926 Boston City Directory. The Keystone Manufacturing Company shares an address with Marks Bros, rear 288 A Street Boston. It was incorporated in 1919 with $93,000. The president is one Edward M Swartz, the secretary is none other than Isadore Marks, and the treasurer is a Mrs Jennie M Weisman.

So the picture looks rather more complicated than has been previously described.

Clearly, the Marks brothers are key figures. The 1920 US census shows the family living at 21 Esmond Street, Dorchester, Boston. They were born in Russia (or Balbeershek (modern Białobrzegi), Poland, according to Joseph Marks’ naturalisation record) and immigrated in 1895. As well as Isadore, born ca 1887, and Benjamin, born ca 1896, there was an older brother Joseph Marks, born ca 1882. All were toy manufacturers. Rebecca Marks, born ca 1890, was the housekeeper; a Rose Marks, born ca 1894, ladies’ haberdasher, also appears. They had not always been toy manufacturers – the 1910 census shows Joseph Marks as a house painter, Isadore Marks as a gasfitter, and Rebecca Marks as a stitcher of neckwear.

As the 1926 Directory stated that Marks Bros was incorporated in 1915, I looked at earlier city directories. In the 1917 Boston City directory, the listing of Toy businesses does not include Marks Bros – instead, it lists Joseph Marks Co, rear 2176 Washington St, Roxbury; Marks & Knoring Co, 40 Winchester St; and Moss and Marks Co., 101 Albany St, 4^th floor. The alphabetical listings confirm that Joseph Marks Co, toy manufacturers, comprised Joseph, Benjamin and Isadore Marks. Isadore was also president of Moss & Marks Co Inc. Benjamin was the sales manager at 2176 Washington St (Joseph Marks Co.).

The Marks’ partners in these firms were Abraham J. Knoring, born in Russia, a dealer in bottles, who was also secretary and treasurer of Mark V Knoring Co, at the same address, 40 Winchester; and Isidore Moss, born in Austria, a clothing manufacturer. I can imagine that Moss & Marks Co may have made children’s play outfits; Celluloid Dolls (by Pelletier Robinson) says that, according to Coleman’s Encyclopedia of Dolls, Marks and Knoring made dolls with celluloid faces.

By 1919, the names Joseph Marks Co, Marks & Knoring and Moss and Marks had given way to Marks Bros Co, and the address given was 40 Winchester St (where Marks & Knoring had been in 1917). There is no entry for Joseph Marks. For a short period in the early 1920s, Isadore and Benjamin Marks also made dolls under the name Andrew Manufacturing Company (address 463 Dorchester av, Boston).

So, it seems that the Marks family, after arriving in the United States from Russia, worked as house painters, gas fitters, haberdashers and neckwear stitchers until they had enough capital to set up their own business as toy manufacturers. They also seem to have had an eye out for partnerships which would enable them to expand their range (whatever that was, initially).

Toys found under the Marks Bros name include many Mickey Mouse toys made under licence from Walt Disney (bagatelle, Pin the Tail on Mickey Mouse, a Mickey Mouse toy piano with die-cut cardboard dancing figures, a Mickey Mouse target game, Mickey Mouse hoop-la, dexterity games, toy soldier set, etc), as well as dolls with celluloid socket and shoulder-plate heads, toy cardboard telescopes, toy baseball and horse racing games, party horns and miniature rocking toys.

The partnerships with Moss and Knoring were followed by one with Edward Swartz of the Keystone Manufacturing Company.

Edward Swartz, Keystone

Edward M Swartz was born in Posvel, Russia (modern Pasvalys, Lithuania) in 1886. The 1920 US census shows him as a manufacturer of toy moving pictures, who employed others in the business. Mrs Jennie M Weisman, treasurer of the Keystone Manufacturing Company, was his mother-in-law, and was born in Kiev. One of his brothers-in-law manufactured paper cups.

There are 9 companies called Keystone in the 1920 Boston directory – Keystone Coin Controlling Lock Co, Keystone Envelope Co, Keystone Fibre Co, Keystone Lubricating Grease Co, Keystone Printing Co, Keystone Sales Co, Keystone Wire Matting Co, Keystone Woolen Mills – and Keystone Manufacturing Co, makers of children’s furniture. I doubt that all these companies were related; perhaps there is some feature of Boston that makes Keystone a likely name.

Keystone Manufacturing Co, children’s furniture, is interesting, though, as it is exactly the name used by Edward M. Swartz for his toy moving camera company, which was not yet listed in the directory. The following year, 1921, the directory shows that the children’s furniture manufacturer had changed its name to Keystone Furniture Manufacturing Co (Abraham Cohen, 90 (later 86) Merrimac St Boston), and the Keystone Manufacturing Co (Edward Swartz, president, 53 Wareham Street, Boston) manufactures toys.

As the 1920 directory shows Isadore Marks associated only with Marks Bros Co, it seems likely that Edward Swartz set up Keystone Manufacturing in 1919 without any involvement of the Marks family. However, by 1922 Isadore Marks is listed as the secretary of Keystone Mfg Co, which was then at 53 Wareham St, Boston, and by 1925, Keystone Mfg Co and Marks Bros Co were sharing the same address, 288 A Street. As noted above, by 1926 Isadore and Benjamin Marks were already officeholders in the Jacrim Manufacturing Co. Jacrim still had separate premises at 615 Albany St in 1926 and 1928, but by 1930 Jacrim too was sharing the premises at 288 A Street.

Amalgamation

Sometime after that, all three (or more?) were amalgamated under the name Keystone, with Edward Swartz and Chester Rimmer retaining management positions in their respective specialties. It’s possible that the name Keystone was chosen over Marks to avoid confusion with Louis Marx and Co, the well-known manufacturers of metal dolls houses and plastic furniture, or the even better known comedians, the Marx Brothers Chico, Harpo and Groucho.

Ad from 1938 Playthings. The Marks Bros had a showroom at 200 5^th Avenue in 1935, and the 1938 Keystone Manufacturing catalogue also gives a showroom address here.

In the 1938-39 Keystone catalogue which Florine owns, as well as the 2 pages of dolls houses, there are:

· 10 junior movie projectors, a page of adult projectors and 8 and 16 mm movie cameras,

· several pages of heavy steel “ride ‘em” toys for boys and girls (models of full-sized Packard vehicles produced with permission of the Packard Motor Co.),

· children’s kneehole desks and matching chairs, musical cradles,

· soldier forts,

· beautiful 30s style speedboats, plus sailboats, a fireboat, and surprisingly (as it was before WW2) an exploding battle fleet and shooting submarine….

With our knowledge of the individual companies which had merged, we can see here Edward M Swartz’ toy movie cameras and ride ‘em toys; Chester Rimmer’s toy boats; and possibly Abraham Cohen’s children’s furniture. Keystone continued to acquire the ranges of other companies: just before World War II Keystone purchased the tools and dies from Kingsbury Toys, which was going out of the toy business.

Popular Mechanics Jun 1938

We don’t know whether dolls houses were made by one of the original firms before their merger (although no dolls houses marked Jacrim or Marks Bros are known). It would be a natural progression from manufacturing children's furniture – or possibly from boats and wagons – or from Marks’ Bros laminated cardboard, paper lithographed toys. Perhaps, when the three companies had amalgamated, they realised that dolls houses were missing from their otherwise extensive range of toys, or that they needed to cater to girls too.

World War II

Keystone continued production during WWII; the 1942-43 catalog, which Florine owns, added lots of war toys (mainly boats; Chester Rimmer’s contribution perhaps), a small “bowling alley” on legs, 2 pages of dollhouses, still had several pages of junior projectors and the adult cameras and projectors, but added a page of 8 and 16 mm movie films, child related and travelogues. (In fact, it seems that Rebecca Marks had continued stitching ties, as a 1942 issue of The Billboard advertises “a line of summer neckwear in the latest designs” made by the Keystone Manufacturing Company. “A spokesman for the firm pointed out that it has been in existence for over 20 years and has always given satisfactory service.”)

As we’ve seen, prior to WWII the history of Keystone was one of several small companies being set up and then taken over by the Marks Brothers, initially keeping their original name and separate premises, but then all becoming part of the Keystone Manufacturing Company.

Keystone garages in Popular Science 1947 and 1950 LIFE 27 Nov p77

1950s: Splits

The 1950s brought changes. Isidore Marks died in 1951 (and Benjamin in 1956). By 1953, Keystone had split into four separate entities once again. The Keystone Camera Co (manufacturers of motion picture apparatus), and the Keystone Manufacturing Co (manufacturers of metal toys) were both under the direction of Edward M Swartz, the founder.

Chester Rimmer, founder of Jacrim Seaworthy wooden boats, was president and treasurer of the Keystone Wood Toys Inc, with Chas V Kesselman as vice-president. Chester Rimmer’s home address is given as Norwell, Massachusetts, from 1953 on, and he died there in 1984.

Another company, Keystone Import & Sales Co (toys) was under the direction of one David Dobro.

Takeovers

It seems that these four companies did not continue to operate independently for very long. According to the February 1958 issue of Playthings, Keystone Wood Toys had just been purchased by the South Bend Toy Manufacturing Company of South Bend, Indiana. South Bend Toys had existed since the 1870s, making wooden toys such as croquet sets, rocking horses, wooden and wicker doll carriages, etc. Florine’s most recent Keystone house, which is still in its box, is marked Keystone Division, South Bend Toys; it is one of the models shown in the 1955 Keystone Wood Toys catalog issued from Hallett St, Boston. The Playthings article states that “all of the Keystone tools, dies, jigs, equipment, etc., are now in South Bend and the entire South Bend toy organization is busy getting set up to get into production on this merchandise.”

However, in the same month, the Playskool Manufacturing Company of Chicago acquired a fifty percent interest in South Bend Toys. No changes were planned at that point in the management or sales organisation of South Bend Toys, but Playskool later became a subsidiary of Milton Bradley, which then became a subsidiary of Hasbro. In its earliest catalogues, Playskool had offered a collapsible wooden dolls house with four rooms and a sun parlour, and in the 1950s or 60s, produced play sets, including Let’s Play House . Perhaps South Bend Toys, or Playskool, produced the Keystone-type dolls houses shown in the FAO Schwarz catalogs as late as 1967, but the catalogs do not identify the suppliers.

According to a 1981 Nutshell News article by Dee Snyder, the Keystone Camera Company was bought by Berkey Photo, Inc. in 1966 and moved to Clifton, N.J. This article also states that “the wooden toy division was sold to the creative person who had designed and supervised the building of the houses and other toys.” This would seem to suggest that Chester Rimmer (who became president of Keystone Wood Toys in 1953, and who had definitely designed the wooden boats) was also the designer of the dolls houses, but this is not certain.

Getting your ducks lined up in a row

Pan recently did a delightful post about a Barrett's Novelty box she acquired, with a porthole mirror. She also has other items in this set, and wondered if anyone had other items. Her earlier post about her Barretts Pop-Up Electric Toaster inspired me to photograph my boxed sets of Barretts Novelties when I visited my mother in July, so here they finally are!

Mine came via America, where they were sold at Shackman's in New York:


Inside are the original Barretts boxes:


The boxes are illustrated and labelled on all sides:




Don't you love the logo? A beefeater standing at arms inside the B! The company which made them is A. Barrett & Sons - here they use the rather grand name of The Barretts of Sonderburg Street (their premises until 1970).

A. Barrett had been making metal dolls house accessories since 1920, in partnership with F.G. Taylor, as Taylor & Barrett. After World War II, both men set up independent companies with their sons, and A. Barrett & Sons produced dolls house pieces from the early 1950s until 1983, with metal pieces gradually replaced by plastic. If you want to know more about Barrett and/or Taylor, Marion Osborne's book Bartons "Model Homes" has a history of the firms, and lists and photos of the items they produced. The Novelty Box series was sold from about 1959 to 1970, but a lot of the items were available previously (in metal) and later (in plastic).

The contents of these three boxes are in my late Victorian Cupboard House, so it's puzzle find the Barretts:

(There's another Barretts' Novelty set in this photo - can you pick it?
Hint: see the list on the box below! I don't have the box for this one.)

(No, this toast was not made in the pop-up toaster!
Someone must have eaten those slices, and made some more on the range.)

Recently I bought another boxed Barretts' Novelty Set. This box doesn't have a label or a picture showing what it is:



Can you tell?



Yes, it's the ducks!

Here they are in the living room of the Italian Villa style house.


Marion Osborne says that Nos 9 and 10 were added to the list on the box when Barretts re-ordered the boxes for the novelty series, and had to take into consideration future lines. The scales apparently never got past the prototype stage; she believes the Sunbeam Mixer was part of the Kitchen Accessories set, but didn't know what else was. Does anyone have a kitchen set?

I've just won another lot of boxed Barretts Novelty sets, so I'll show them when they arrive. Until then, here's a cat whose kittens have grown up and left home:

Introducing Miss Birdie Fethalite

Miss Birdie Fethalite is an Australian doll, who was born in the 1940s in Sydney. She has an extensive wardrobe, consisting of two summer frocks:



two winter coats:



a siren suit:



and a party dress:


From the front, Birdie looks nicely rounded. Her back view, however, shows that she is flat, and even slightly hollowed out:


From the back, you can see how her clothes clip on around her waist. Sadly, she has had an accident some time in which she lost most of her right arm.

Birdie is not as fortunate in regards to housing as she is with her wardrobe. I'm sure she would love to live in the Marquis kitchen and other rooms in that set. As I didn't win it, however, I have posed her here in front of Marquis kitchen furnishings set up in front of the photo of the inside of the box on my computer screen. It looks just the right size for her, and the walls even match one of her dresses - but as she can't live in front of the computer all the time, I will have to find another home for her!

Perhaps she could live with the Cacos, and they could all share the curling tongs:


This little doll is marked with the Fethalite brand name and symbol:


The number 204/1 appears to be the product number. All the pieces of clothing are also marked: the frocks are 204/2, the long dress is 204/3, the coats are 204/5, and the siren suit is 204/6. She must have had another outfit too, as 204/4 is missing from this set.

Fethalite plastic products were made by Pierwood Plastics (Piercy & Ashwood) in Chatswood, Sydney. qilich has a Fethalite catalogue from 1949, which shows miniature kitchen and bathroom sets, and a couple of dolls, but not this one. Her hairstyle and the siren suit definitely date her to the 1940s, so she was probably made before 1949. I wonder if she was always alone, or whether a family of dolls was produced?

Update: Ysé6 and Roberta have told me on flickr that the same doll was also made by the Selcol company in England. A Selcol doll is listed on ebay at the moment - here she is with her outfits and her right arm:



The clothes are almost the same as Miss Fethalite's, although the decoration on the long dress is different. The piece missing from my set is probably the little gym tunic, here in yellow next to the yellow frock.

Thanks, Ysé6 and Roberta - though I'm sorry to realise that all Australian-made plastic dolls house miniatures were made using moulds from US or British companies! Seems we did OK on production (at least while tariffs were in place), but didn't produce original designs.

Update 2: Sally also has a Selcol doll set: see her blog stitchywoowoo. It's clear from Sally's pictures that the frock is a pinafore dress - Miss Birdie's frock doesn't have straps, so that's another difference between the English and Australian clothes.

And Marcie Tubbs has very kindly emailed to say that in her book Dollhouse and Miniature Dolls 1840-1990 (which I have!), she pictures both a 'Peggy' doll made in the US by Ideal in the mid 1950s, and a Lido doll dress set, also made in the US. She also received a photo from a reader of a boxed set of 'Peggy's Magic Snap-On Wardrobe', made by Bell Industries (in the UK, I assume).
The dolls and clothing sets made by Selcol, Fethalite, Ideal, Lido and Bell, in the UK, US and Australia, are almost identical. As Marcie says, this doll really travelled! I wonder where she started?
The mid 1950s Ideal catalogue which Marcie has describes her wardrobe as consisting of 2 bathing suits, pajamas, 2 over-coats, hat, 2 school dresses and party dress. The Lido set identifies the bathing suit as a play jumper.
Sally describes the 'school dress' as a pinafore dress (the Australian one isn't, as it doesn't have straps). I was seeing the clothes through the lens of 1940s British novels, so the bathing suit / play jumper looks like a gym slip to me, and the pajamas look like a siren suit. If Peggy was originally made in the UK, the siren suit would make sense (and as I suggested, it goes with her 1940s hairstyle). If she was first made in the US, then they probably were pyjamas originally.

So, more questions: where was she first made? when? and how did she come to be made or sold by 5 companies in 3 continents? We may be able to answer some of them if we're lucky enough to find dated catalogues showing the Selcol and Bell dolls one day.

Thanks, Marcie and Sally, for sharing your dolls!

Dolls Houses for the War Effort

I've been having fun looking at mentions of dolls houses in old Australian newspapers. I've noticed that quite a few dolls houses were raffled during WWII, to raise money to support the troops and prisoners of war. In Tasmania alone, the Tasmanian newspaper The Mercury reported on over 12 dolls houses donated for raffles. Some were made especially for the raffle, some were old childhood or family dolls houses. The Mercury was also particularly good at showing photos of the dolls houses, and I thought you might be interested to see them.



This dolls house was made by the employees of Nettlefold's Bodyworks, Hobart, in their spare time. Mr Bernard Walker (an architect who was involved in the development of the Cadbury Estate in the 1920s) designed the dolls house, and Miss L. M. (Maud) Poynter (a potter and painter) and Miss E. (Spring) Reid made the furniture and fittings. It was described as a very modern dolls house, "modelled on the lines of a modern home, and fitted throughout with snappy miniature furniture."

The lounge, bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and dining-room are all completely furnished down to the tiniest detail. Real carpets are laid down and the rooms are fitted with electric light. A special feature is a roof garden, complete with swing seat and a large sun umbrella. Special pottery equipment and dolls were made by Miss Poynter. The house is painted in cream and has a brown roof.

The house was donated to the Red Cross Prisoner-of-War Fund in January 1942, and drawn in March. The Mercury published the amount raised in 8 weekly instalments, totalling over £120. Here's the winner, Margaret Neave of Battery Point, Hobart, with the house, showing just how big it is:


(Nettlefold's had another dolls house on display two years later, in 1944, when they posted the following public notice in The Mercury:

Would the boy who took Toy Motor-Car from the Doll's House at Nettlefold's Showroom return same to save further trouble.)

Two months later, in May 1942, another dolls house, fully furnished and with running hot and cold water, was donated in aid of the Air Training Corps equipment fund. This raffle also realised £100; the winner was Miss Diana Rex, c/o Mr. G. Rex, Morrison St., Hobart. Sadly, there are no photos of this house with its running water. Although the maker is not named, F. X. de Bavay was responsible for placing the announcement of the winner in The Mercury; he is named as the maker of another dolls house in 1945, so perhaps he made this one too.

Then in October 1942, members of the Apex Club of Hobart designed and built the "Dolls' Dream House", which they donated to the Red Cross "Young Bill" prisoners of war appeal.


This house measured 4' 6" by 2' by 2' 6". It had a sun roof and a garage, and the furnishings included tiny carpets, bedsteads, blankets, pillows and pictures. Most of the furnishings were made and donated by Peter Eldershaw, then a patient at Wingfield House for crippled children (he later became principal archivist, State Archives of Tasmania). A Mrs Basil Crisp donated a Parisian teaset to the house in the second week of the raffle.

The dolls house was exhibited in Hobart, Launceston, Burnie and Devonport, and regularly reported on in The Mercury. The manufacturers of the materials used to make the dolls house took advantage of the massive publicity to advertise their products. Here, we are informed that "The Feltex floor covering for the "Dream House" was donated by Felt and Textiles of Australia Ltd."


Another version of this ad informs us that

"MASONITE, "the wonder Board with a Thousand Uses," was used in the construction of the Dolls' Dream House.
This Advertisement is inserted by the manufacturers, THE COLONIAL SUGAR REFINING CO. LTD. (Building Materials Division), to assist in the war effort."

(Who would have thought masonite was made by the CSR sugar company?)

and a third tells us that

"The painting of the Dolls' Dream House was carried out entirely in "Dulux."
This advertisement is inserted by the makers, British Australian Lead Manufacturers Pty. Ltd., to assist the war effort."

All three companies had further information at the bottom of the advertisement about how they were contributing to the war effort:



A dinghy was raffled at the same time as this dolls house - between them, they raised £516. The winner of the dolls house, drawn at an Apex Ball on December 19th 1942, was Elsa Young of 35 Tennyson Street, East Malvern, Victoria. Did she take her dolls house home to Victoria, I wonder?

In May 1944, two Hobart children made a dolls house for the Red Cross. They called it Austerity House, because it was made from "boxes and "bits and pieces" at the cost of 1/."


The children were Brian Kemp, aged 8, and Ann Kemp, aged 10; their father, LAC Wilfred Kemp, was in the Royal Australian Air Force. Brian had already made models of a man-o'-war and a hospital ship, which he had donated to the Prisoners of War shop. Ann was "an accomplished knitter, making her own jumpers and cardigans, and now knitting her first pair of gloves." She made "vases and pot plants [for the dolls house] from coloured bottle tops, and match boxes and cotton reels were used in the construction of the furniture."

This dolls house was won by Betty Groombridge, of Lower Longley.

Catherine Macleod of Richmond was one of the people who donated her childhood dolls house in aid of the war effort - it was "most attractively refurnished by Mrs J. Eldershaw and her son, Peter" (who furnished the Apex dolls house, above) before being raffled for the Red Cross in May 1944.

Another old dolls house had been donated to the Battery Point Red Cross at the end of 1943. This wasn't just a childhood dolls house - it was nearly 100 years old!

Ouch! They are leaning on an antique, 3-winged Georgian dolls house to write the raffle tickets!!

The Mercury gave the history of this dolls house (I've added to it with a bit of online research). It was sent from England to Mr William Knight in Van Diemen's Land, for his baby daughter, Emily Lang Knight, who was born in 1850. She grew up and married Henry Thomas Maning in 1876, and gave the dolls house to her daughter, Frances Maning, born 1878, to play with. Frances Maning became Mrs Cecil Baldwin, and donated the house to the Red Cross in 1943. The Mercury reported that

It ... is in an excellent state of preservation. Only a comparatively small amount of renovation was necessary, and this was undertaken by Miss Poynter, who is well known in the world of art, and is a keen worker for the Red Cross.
Most of the furniture is the original, and a feature is a fascinating little writing desk complete with candlesticks. The remainder is more than 50 years old, and is in perfect order.

(Miss Poynter had also furnished the Nettlefolds' dolls house raffled in early 1942.)

What an amazing piece of Tasmanian history. It would be one of the oldest dolls houses in Australia, if it still exists. Strangely, this raffle was to be drawn after only one week - I wonder how much it made, compared with the raffles that went on for weeks with huge publicity. The winner was J.S. Ramsay of Launceston. I'm going to try tracing this house!

"Housing problem solved - for this little lady at any rate! She was purchasing a ticket in the doll's house raffle in connection with the Allies' Day Appeal yesterday."

The Allies' Day Appeal was held in July 1944, and this dolls house was raffled on the Free French Stall. The reports don't give any information about who made or donated the dolls house, and it's hard to see the details in this photo. It seems to be a fairly traditional two-storey house with a simple pitched roof. Lorna Ahearne of Mt. Nelson won this house (so perhaps this little girl's housing problems weren't solved!)

Finally, in February 1945, F.X. de Bavay, master brewer and general manager of the Cascade Brewery, made a dolls house which he called the Victory Doll's House. He donated this house to the Tasmanian Society for the Care of Crippled Children and thc Tasmanian Sanatorium, so it wasn't strictly speaking in aid of the war effort - but the name certainly referred to the war! The winner of the Victory Doll's House was Miss Sallie Hall, of 10 Tasma Street, Launceston.

Does anybody recognise the Nettlefolds' house, the Dolls' Dream house, or the Georgian house? They are all fairly distinctive - if they have survived, they would be quite easy to recognise, I think. I'd love to know where they are!

The oldest dolls house for a dolls house? (Updated)

I've just ordered Halina Pasierbska's book Doll's House Furniture. Google books has a preview, including this photo, of the nursery in Ann Sharp's baby house:


Ann Sharp's house dates from 1695, and is the oldest surviving English baby house. Could this be the oldest surviving dolls house for a dolls house?

Update: Christine and Beatrice asked on facebook about the size of this tiny dolls' house. Flora Gill Jacobs, in A History of Dolls' Houses, gives the height of the whole house: 5' 10" (so 70", or about 1.78m). The house has four storeys, including an attic - I think that this room would be about 18 1/3" high (or 46.8 cm). (The attic and basement have less height than the two main floors, so this room is probably a bit more than a quarter of the total height.) As you can see, this dolls house is almost half the height of the room, which would make it about 9" high. I've been trying to work out the scale. I think the rooms being represented here (in Ann Sharp's house and the dolls' house dolls' house) are a bit over 12 1/2 feet high. So I think the scale of the little house is about 1/44th. (Corrections welcomed!)

Flora Gill Jacobs quotes a Mrs Willoughby Hodgson, who in 1917 wrote an article about Ann Sharp's baby house for The Connoisseur . The dolls' house is, Mrs Hodgson says, made of and furnished with cardboard (though Halina Pasierbska says it's paper, and thinks Ann Sharp probably made it herself).

The tiny prints which adorn its walls are believed to represent Bishopthorpe [residence of the Archbishop of York], with the church in the grounds, and the furniture includes a grandfather clock, flap tables, footstools, a slung looking-glass, dressing tables, kitchen stove and dresser, and many other articles.