We all fall down like toy soldiers

SOON after Christmas 1881, Winston Churchill, then eight, wrote to his absent parents: ‘I thank you very much for the beautiful presents, those Soldiers and Flags and Castle they are so nice.’ Retaining his military enthusiasm, Churchill entered Sandhurst in 1893, the year that William Britain began to manufacture his famous metal soldiers—another enduring source of English pride and inspiration.

Before 1893, toy soldiers—mostly German-made—were solid and heavy. Britain invented a revolutionary hollow-casting method, using an alloy of lead and tin, which made his figures both lighter and cheaper. However, the primary attraction of these models, mostly designed by two of Britain’s five sons, lay in the variety of subject matter,