Winston Churchill’s Toy Soldiers

This collection of miniature flat tin soldiers is displayed in the museum of the Churchill War Rooms in London. There are 43 cavalry and 54 infantry hand-painted in 19th-century uniforms. The French are on the right and the British on the left with one soldier lying wounded in front.

Winston Churchill got his first set of toy soldiers when he was seven years old. As a teenager he was still playing war games with a set that had grown to 1,500 pieces. He liked re-enacting the Battles of Blenheim (1704) and Waterloo (1815). On one occasion his father, Lord Randolph Churchill, came to inspect his toy troops and asked Winston if he would like to join the Army. These words changed the course of his life.

The Napoleonic period has always been highly popular with collectors. In the 18th and 19th centuries only the very rich could afford to buy the boxed sets of toy soldiers manufactured in France and Germany. Napoleon had a set of gold soldiers made for his son. But in 1893 an English firm called Britain began making more affordable hollow-cast lead figures.

Today they are cheaply mass-produced in plastic. Collecting old and new toy soldiers with miniature accessories is a serious business with its own specialist magazines, websites, shows and auctions.