JUST in time for “the most wonderful time of the year,” the iconic toy brand Hamleys opened its first store on December 20 in Central Square, Bonifacio High Street. Families turned out for the occasion, with the smiles and laughter of children marking an afternoon of fun and festive celebration. They were thrilled to meet and greet and have selfies with Santa Claus and the Hamleys mascot.
Guests also had a jolly good time with the magic show and the various fun activities organized by the store. Be it Christmas or not, Hamleys is definitely a go-to store if you’re in the market for the best gift to give to a little angel. A second store is already scheduled to open this year to bring smile and laughter to more Filipino children.
Growing up in Cornwall, England, founder William Hamley might have become a tin miner, or a fisherman. But the man had other ideas. He dreamed of opening the best toy shop in the world and, in 1760, he did just that, cramming a veritable “Noah’s Ark” of toys of every kind, from rag dolls to tin soldiers.
Over the streetsellers’ calls and the horses’ hooves ringing on the cobbled streets, you can imagine the delighted cries of children as they approached the window of the first Hamleys store. By the time Queen Victoria came to the throne in 1837, Hamleys was already a London landmark. Families flocked to William’s “Joy Emporium.”
Some 250 years after that first Hamleys store opened, the toys may have changed but the same delighted faces can be seen on anyone who enters a Hamleys toy store, be it located in whether in Regent Street in West End, London; Central Square in Bonifacio Hight Street, or some other parts of the world.
Along with everybody else in the late 1920s, Hamleys faced hard times. In 1931 the picture was so bleak that the shop was forced to close and its fleet of horse-drawn delivery vans was stilled. That said, this story, of course, has a happy ending. Walter Lines, the chairman of the Tri-Ang company, bought Hamleys and worked hard to bring customers back.
By 1938 his efforts had been rewarded. Queen Mary gave Hamleys the Royal Warrant, which every anglophile will know is nothing short of a royal imprimatur. Even at the height of the bombing during World War II, Hamleys continued to spread cheer among the young ones.
Wearing tin hats, the staff served at the shop entrance, rushing in to collect the toys and then handing them over at the door.
The Festival of Britain in 1951 brought a Grand Dolls Salon, as well as a vast model railway to amaze children—and their mothers and fathers. When she came to the throne, Queen Elizabeth II showed that she still remembered the toys her grandmother had given her. She, in turn, gave Hamleys toys to her own children. In 1955 Her Majesty honored Walter Lines with a second Royal Warrant as a “Toys and Sports Merchant.” That said, it was the smiles of children that truly rewarded Walter Lines and his staff.
In the Philippines Hamleys is exclusively distributed by Stores Specialists Inc. (SSI), a member of the SSI Group.
Image credits: Renie Salvador