Frank Hornby: Inspiring future generations
The Frank Hornby Charitable Trust
Maghull’s Frank Hornby
Heritage Centre
A journey that started with humble beginnings, tinkering with a toy to entertain & educate his children, to being an inventor, industrialist, businessman, politician & millionaire.
This Royal Tiger Dinky Toys coach (No.282) reached our Heritage Centre with virtually all its red paint missing.
Paint stripper removed what was left. The casting was cleaned up, repainted with primer, then 2 coats of red & silver detailing reproduced.
It was produced from 1952 to 1960 and some versions are in blue livery.
Our Heritage Centre tries to do as little as possible to Dinky Toys but this one needed the full hit to return it how it would have left Liverpool's famous Binns Road Meccano factory.
Dinky castings were made of ZAMAK or Zamac, formerly trademarked as MAZAK. It's an alloy with a base metal of zinc with elements of aluminium, magnesium, and copper so Wikipedia tells us.
It's now on public display in Maghull's Frank Hornby Heritage Centre.
Hornby Railways Silver Jubilee Freight Set from 1976. Released under the Rovex trade mark, it’s on display at & on long-term loan to Maghull’s FHHC
One of the plaques from the BR Class 86 Electric loco which carried ‘Frank Hornby’ nameplates. It’s on display in Maghull.
A Meccano Motor Car Constructor Outfit No.2 dating from @1933 on display at Maghull's Frank Hornby Heritage Centre
1939 Hornby Dublo D2 Set
This is a cracking addition to the displays of Hornby items at Maghull's Frank Hornby Heritage Centre. It dates from 1939 and was recently passed on to us by Mike Howard.
The excellent Brighton Toy and Model Museum has some interesting information about this wooden D2 set:-
https://www.brightontoymuseum.co.uk/.../Category:Hornby...
We don't have the full set (which sold for 25/- in 1939) because the arched station canopy part is missing. We do, however, have the separately purchased wooded block signal box (see below), which sold for 11d. What a find, thank you so much Mike.
Recording memories of Meccano Factory workers
We’ve recorded the experiences of Ernie Busby during his working time at the Meccano Factory. This is the first such recording the Frank Hornby Heritage Centre has undertaken. One of our trustees conducted the interview and the recording has subsequently been edited and turned into a YouTube video by a Sefton Libraries volunteer. Please access it via the link below:-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qHSXTjEz9I
We hope you enjoy listening to it and if there are other Meccano employees out there who may wish to participate in this project please email Tony Robertson at t3robertson@gmail.com
The project aims to digitally record the working memories of former employees, which would otherwise be lost.
A National Museums Liverpool podcast all about Maghull's famous resident Frank Hornby
Les French & Tony Robertson take part from the Frank Hornby Trust to help tell the story of the world-famous toy maker and his influences - https://www.liverpoolmuseums.org.uk/stories/frank-hornby-national-museums-liverpool-podcast
This website aims to explore all things in the Hornby Universe, past and present, with the objective of generating a vast knowledge base in order to educate and connect enthusiasts.
The Frank Hornby Charitable Trust runs and curates the Frank Hornby Heritage Centre in Maghull on Merseyside, the Town where Frank Hornby lived for much of his adult life.
The Heritage Centre is within Meadows Leisure Centre on Hall Lane Maghull, L31 7BB. It opens the same hours/days as Maghull Library, presently 10 am - 5 pm Monday to Friday and 10 am - 2 pm Saturday.
Please note, we’re NOT open on Sundays and Bank Holidays
Our Heritage Centre, whilst being very much about Frank Hornby and the products of his Meccano Factory, also takes an interest in products that subsequently fell under differing ownerships, particularly following the demise of the Meccano Factory in 1979.
See our FHHC gallery photos under the ‘Products’ tag above
There’s no charge to visit our Heritage Centre but donations can be made via our collection box.
Please see our disability access statement for the FHHC on our ‘Places to visit’ page under the ‘Clubs, Associations & Enthusiasts’ tab above
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Our Memories/Education Box is available to be borrowed via Sefton Council’s Library Service
Please follow the link below (or speak to Maghull [Meadows] Library staff) & search for ‘Educational Box: Frank Hornby’ to start the booking process - Educational Box: Frank Hornby
The Hornby/Meccano items in the box include a clockwork 0 Gauge train & track, 2 built Meccano models & some Dinky Toys.
Explanatory cards box tell users all about Hornby/Meccano so that they can lead a talk in schools, care homes, or to community/local history organisations, etc.
Looking for someone to give a Hornby talk?
If you’d like one of our volunteer trustees to give a talk please email Les French at - caractorgraphics@yahoo.co.uk
We do ask for a minimum donation of £30 for such talks to cover our costs and to bring some money into our small charitable trust.
Our trustees will usually travel to venues within Merseyside and Lancashire but please feel free to contact us if you are further away to see if we can accommodate your request.
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Donations to our Charitable Trust
Monetary donations go straight into our funds which are used to make appropriate purchases for display at our Maghull Heritage Centre.
We have a donations box in our Maghull Heritage Centre which can also be used to pay for books purchased from our small library of mainly railway related reading.
We often get donations of model railway-related items, model cars, transport-related books, items of Meccano etc. etc. If the items are unrelated to Meccano/Hornby/Dinky Toys/other products of Hornby/Meccano we will usually sell them to help our Trust. If they are Hornby etc. we will put them on display at our Heritage Centre. If we already have an item we’ll keep the best and sell others.
All our funds are used for the benefit of our Trust and we are grateful for all donations.
If you’d like to donate items to our charitable trust please contact Tony Robertson at - t3robertson@gmail.com
Hornby 0 Gauge Clockwork train set on display at Maghull’s FHHC
A Dinky Toy refurb' by our Heritage Centre
Just a replacement windscreen for our Fraser/Nash BMW dating from @1946 - Dinky No.38a.
Other than the reproduction windscreen this car is in original Meccano Factory condition, if a little play-worn. We try to do only what is necessary when refurbishing Dinky Toys and only go for repainting when the model is pretty much a wreck.