Frank Hornby

Hornby's legacy has persisted long after his death with enthusiasts all over the world still building Meccano models and collecting his toys.

[1] At the age of sixteen, Hornby left school and started working as a cashier in his father's business.

After experimenting with new ideas in his home workshop, Hornby began making toys for his sons in 1899 with pieces he cut from sheet metal.

The breakthrough came when Hornby realised that if he could make separate, interchangeable parts that could be bolted together, any model could be built from the same components.

The key inventive step was the realisation that regular perforations in the structural pieces could be used, not only to join them together with nuts and bolts, but also to journal – act as a bearing for – axles and shafts.

On advice, he patented his invention in January 1901 as "Improvements in Toy or Educational Devices for Children and Young People",[2] but not without first having to borrow £5 from his employer, David Elliot, to cover the costs.

Fortunately, his employer saw potential in what Hornby was doing and offered him some vacant premises next to the office where he worked to pursue his ideas.

Hornby now called his construction toy "Mechanics Made Easy" and after receiving a positive endorsement from professor Henry Selby Hele-Shaw, then Head of the Engineering Department at Liverpool University, Hornby managed to secure contracts with outside manufacturers to supply the parts for his construction sets.

New parts were continually being introduced and in 1904, six sets, packed in tin boxes with instruction manuals in French and English, became available.

This prompted Hornby to quit his job with Elliot and find suitable premises to begin manufacturing his own parts.

Hornby died of a chronic heart condition complicated by diabetes in Maghull, near Liverpool, Lancashire, on 21 September 1936.