Toys feature heavily on shopping lists around this time of year, but the treasures you find in children’s stockings have changed vastly over the years. Soon we may get to see for ourselves the marvels that delighted kids in times gone by if the legendary Pollock’s Toy Museum achieves its ambition of relocating to Dalston.
“Christmas all year round” is how the man behind the plans describes the oldest museum of its kind in the UK. Alan Powers – chair of the Pollock’s Toy Museum Trust – tells the tale of Benjamin Pollock, who ran a shop selling miniature theatres in Hoxton Street up until his death in 1937.
These elaborately-decorated cardboard stages were wildly popular with young people of the time, and the shop’s stock was eventually taken over and turned into a museum by script-writer Marguerite Fawdry.
The museum lost is Camden home two years ago and has since been temporarily housed in Croydon. Now, plans are afoot to move Pollock’s to the former Colvestone School site, alongside a clutch of other cultural institutions. If the project gets the go-ahead from Hackney Council, we’ll be able to savour a collection that has now burgeoned to include toys of all descriptions – from doll houses to zoetropes.
Powers has been a fan since he was given a cut-out theatre at the age of eight, and he is enthusiastic about the prospect of bringing the charity-run establishment back to its East End roots nearly 100 years after Pollock’s death. He told East End Review: “For us, Hackney seemed like the ideal place to aim for if we had to move out of our previous place in Camden.
“Hackney is well-positioned. It has a social mix that will work for what we are doing.”
Once installed in its proposed new home, the museum has plans for a slew of outreach projects with schools and the local community, as well as bookable rooms.
In the meantime, you can take in an East End-themed exhibition on ‘Pearlies’ (as in kings, queens and sundry regalia) at the Museum’s Leadenhall Market pop-up, and snap up some Christmas treats at the on-site shop while you’re there.
There is also a permanent Benjamin Pollock’s Toy Shop in Covent Garden selling vintage and retro toys. A plaque marks the shop’s original Hoxton Street location.
