Lego, the plastic-colored interlocking bricks that allow your imagination to take full flight in building cars, boats, airplanes, or entire villages is probably found in every kid’s toy chest. For many, children as well as grownups, building with Legos can become an addiction.
But it was Meccano, invented in 1898 by Frank Hornby in Liverpool, England, that first inspired a passion for engineering, science and technology in generations of youngsters – and their parents.
The system consists of reusable metal strips, plates, angle girders, wheels, axles and gears, and plastic parts that are connected using nuts and bolts. It enables the building of working models and mechanical devices. Later, in 1913, a very similar construction set was introduced in the United States under the brand name Erector and in mid-20th-century America, it was one of the most popular toys to give.
But times and tastes have changed, and now the last dedicated Meccano factory in the world is being closed and dismantled. The Canadian company that owns Meccano has said the plant, located in Calais, France, will close at the beginning of 2024, putting 51 people out of work. It blamed the soaring cost of raw materials and “a lack of competitiveness” for the closure, but clearly that is not the only reason.
Spin Master, which bought the brand in 2013, said Meccano toys would continue to produce other toys by its “network of partners in Europe, Asia and Latin America”.
Meccano kit owners could follow instructions to build a specific device, or use their imaginations to make something else. The engineering toys became widely popular – along with Hornby model trains and Dinky cars made later by the same company – and by the 1930s Meccano had become the largest toy manufacturer in the UK. By the 1920s Meccano Magazine had a monthly circulation of 70,000 and Meccano groups had sprung up around the world. However, it has been in decline since the 1950s.
In the 2020’s such toys are no longer appealing to children raised on visual media who lack the dedication—and attention span–to work at intricate projects that require complex assembly of struts, nuts and bolts. Still, construction toys will always be of interest—both to children or adults—and over the past decades, Lego has effectively squeezed out competitors like Meccano and Erector.
Faced with the stiff competition of video games and more technologically sophisticated toys, Meccano attempted to modernize its image as the toyshop symbol of a lost industrial age by including radio controls, robotics and other 21st-century updates, but to no avail.
In the end, it became a victim of changing tastes and trends and the forward march of technological innovation.
