Harrods Christmas Bear
Harrods Christmas Bear
Large Plush Toys and the Most Famous of all Teddy Bear’s
Very few of us can say that at one time or another, we didn’t have a favorite soft toy; whether it was a teddy bear or a frog, it was a treasured companion. Large plush toys (and even the smaller versions) really are staples of childhood – without them, growing up just wouldn’t be quite the same.
Besides the Steiff company, which was responsible for the creation of the first teddy bear, there were others that followed in their footsteps that also produced top quality soft toys. One such company, was London based manufacturer, J.K. Farnell. This was a family business founded in 1840 by John Kirby Farnell. While the company started out as a silk merchant producing small silk goods like pincushions, their fine needlework skills that were required to make such items, would serve them very well in the future.
When John Farnell died in 1897, Henry and Agnes Farnell, Farnell’s son and daughter, moved the company to a leased property in west London, called The Elms. It was at this new location where their first soft toys and teddy bears were made. After initially using unusual materials to create their bears – like rabbit fur – they eventually turned to much higher quality mohair plush and produced top notch teddy’s.
Following World War I, many British, and even those abroad, were not comfortable buying German goods. As a result, the British teddy bear industry took off. By 1921, J.K. Farnell had outgrown its location – The Elms – so they built a new factory next door. This addition was called the Alpha Works and was managed by Agnes Farnell. With the amount of orders that were flooding in, staff numbers were increased to meet the demand.
With the imaginative designs of Sybil Kemp, J.K. Farnell kept producing first rate soft toys; Alpha Bears were among these. This was a range of teddy bears that strongly resembled the classic teddy bear of 1905 which Richard Steiff had designed. In the early 1920s, when Alpha Bears were first launched, they had golden or silver/white mohair plush, long arms, well-built thighs, big oval feet, thick ankles, and vertically stitched oblong noses.
In 1921, the world’s most famous Alpha Bear was purchased from Harrods in London by A.A. Milne – the author and creator of Winnie the Pooh. Milne bought the bear as a present for his son Christopher Robin’s first birthday. When We Were Very Young, a book of children’s poems, published by Milne in 1924 and illustrated by E.H. Shepard, included the poem ‘Teddy Bear;’ it described a little bear with a weight problem and this was the first unofficial appearance of Pooh. He was launched properly in 1925, in a story written for the Christmas Eve issue of the Evening News. The story went on to launch the first chapter of Winnie the Pooh (1926) which was a collection of short stories about Christopher Robin and his nursery toys. The original Farnell teddy, which Christopher Robin always referred to as Edward Bear, can now be found in the New York Public Library along with all his soft toys companions, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo, and Tigger.
Even Winnie the Pooh has been produced as a large plush toy, as have many of his friends. However, in order to enjoy large plush toys, it doesn’t necessarily have to be with Pooh given there are so many others to choose from.
Copyright Shelley Vassall, 2010. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.
About the Author
Shelley Vassall is a writer and collector of large plush toys
harrods christmas teddy bear 2006 how much is it worth
If this is the one, around $40.
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