Teddy bear
Harwin and Co Ltd
Category
Toys
Date
circa 1916
Materials
Fur fabric and felt
Measurements
280 mm (height)
Place of origin
The Eagle Works, Blackstock Road, Finsbury Park
Order this imageCollection
Sudbury Hall Museum of Childhood, Derbyshire
NT 665001
Caption
This ‘Ally’ teddy bear was manufactured around 1916 by Harwin & Co. Ltd, in north London. The business was established in 1914, by G. W. Harwin after there was an import ban on German-produced goods following the declaration of the First World War. ‘Ally’ bears were designed as part of a series of mascots in uniforms for the Allied Forces in the First World War. This bear is dressed in the uniform of a British Officer and is a rare item; it is unusual today to find a bear of this type fully clothed.
Summary
A teddy bear of 'Lt. Richardson' (circa 1916), designed by Dorothy Harwin. He has a fur fabric body (stuffed) and limbs. He has brown and black wooden eyes, hand-stitched black wool nose, mouth and claws to the paws and feet. He is wearing a lieutenant's sage green felt uniform (jacket, trousers, and peak cap with a leather band and metal badge). There are embroidered and felt details on the shoulders and cuffs of the jacket. The jacket has moth holes. Around his waist is a brown leather belt fastened with a brass stud. He also has a brown leather shoulder strap, brass buttons on the jacket, pockets and epaulettes and a brown felt shirt. Tucked into his belt is a wooden baton tipped at both ends with silver paper. He has beige felt palms and soles of the feet. He is wearing a clear plastic circular monocle, attached to a gold coloured thread, at his right eye. When donated in to the Museum in 1978 the donor descibed him as in "immaculate condition...as we were not allowed to play with him"...
Makers and roles
Harwin and Co Ltd, maker