Exhibition: Wooden Toys from the Polder
Sliedrecht toy factory in Waddinxveen
Few people know that the Netherlands had their own
toy industry. To demonstrate the extent of this industry the
Westfries Museum in Hoorn (the Netherlands)
organized in 2003 an exhibition about the unique Netherlands
toy manufacturing centre Waddinxveen.
Roughly from 1780 till 1980, during 200 years wooden playthings were made
by a group of manufacturers, all making more or less the same traditional
toys, such as rocking horses, push and pull toy horses and all sorts of
vehicles, trains, drawbridges, warehouses, dolls furniture, tops and
cones.
The exhibition presented the Waddinxveen production of playthings. To our surprise some of these Waddinxveen toys were already present in the collection of the Westfries Museum.
Furthermore many other museums and private owners were
approached to source wooden playthings from Waddinxveen, resulting in
the discovery of some one of a kind toys.
In the collection of the Rijtuigmuseum at Leek a pull toy carriage dated
1789 was found. The Fries Museum at Leeuwarden has a chicken coop from
the 19th century.
The Museum Flehite at Amersfoort possesses a knife grinder cart from around 1800. More than once warehouses, vans (decorated with the name of the famous Dutch carrier called "Van Gend & Loos") and horse trams were found.
Also research has been done to locate the Waddinxveen
manufacturers. Well known names from the second half of the 19th century
and the first half of the 20th century are: J. Bremmer with successor
W.A. Sliedrecht, D. Bremmer Jzn., G. Hoogendoorn, A. Kleiweg with successor
Hendix, G. Okkerse and Gebr. Plomp & Zn. and the cabinet making business
Gebr. Van Stijn even started as toy makers. The firm of J. Bremmer started
in 1850 and the firm of G. Hoogendoorn in 1839.
A survey of freight rates posted by the skipper of the trading boat to
Amsterdam from 1801 proves that at that time toy manufacture existed at
Waddinxveen and that these playthings were sold in Amsterdam.
After the second world war many children played with toys made by the toy manufacturer Okkerse. In the sixties they were the biggest wooden toy factory in the Netherlands. E.g. the production of toy shops was immense being made in a series of 10.000 units. Okkerse marked the toys with "okwa", an abbreviation for for Okkerse Waddinxveen.
Westfries Museum, Hoorn, The Netherlands