Growing up
Growing up is part of the following collections: The Harborough Collection.
Highlights
Liberty Bodice
The Liberty Bodice was invented by Fred Cox, Marketing Director at R & W H Symington & Co Ltd in 1908. It was a fleecy knitted vest with rubber buttons, re-enforcing cotton tapes and buttons to attach drawers and stockings. The bodice helped to change the way that children dressed in the early part of the twentieth century.
Until then most middle and upper class children wore supporting re-enforced corsets that were supposed to help ‘train’ their developing bodies. The Liberty Bodice was a softer, less restricting garment that allowed children to move around and play, at a time when playing and being active were viewed as an important parts of childhood.
Fred Cox’s daughter, Freda wore the bodice in an original advertising photograph. She appeared as the ‘Liberty Bodice Girl’ in much of the early marketing. The Liberty Bodice was produced in its millions and continued to be made until the 1960s. Loved or hated by three generations of children it remains one of Leicestershire’s most interesting products.
The Harborough Toys
Dating from the early 17th century, a unique hoard of more than 200 toys was found behind a bricked-up stairwell in St. Dionysisus Church in the centre of Market Harborough. The toys include whip-tops, tip-cats, small balls and sap whistles.
They were made from wood, pig’s knuckle bones and fabrics, all easily obtainable materials to children who had to make their own toys long before such things were mass-produced.
Tip-cat, a game where children have to hit a small stick with a bigger stick, has been popular for hundreds of years. It was often seen as a nuisance, even before health and safety rules took the fun out of playground games. As late as 1853 Punch magazine commented ‘This mania for playing at cat is no less absurd than dangerous…’
Could this hoard be confiscated toys taken from children causing trouble around the church more than 300 years ago?
You can read more about toys, including the Harborough Toys, in the Leicestershire Museum Collections website.
