The Anglesey Museum of Childhood Memories
This museum was the brainchild of an engineer who loves childhood memorabilia.

The Anglesey Museum of
Childhood Memories

He worked as an engineer here in the UK as well as Canada and the United States. His real love, though, was collecting antiques particularly moneyboxes and other childhood memorabilia.

Moneyboxes
Why did moneyboxes hold such a fascination for him? Perhaps it goes back to his birth. At that time, his father worked for Leyland Motors and his workmates presented him with a brass moneybox made especially for the new baby and inscribed with the name ‘Robert’. This is still one of Robert Brown’s most treasured possessions and a star exhibit in the museum.

Like many collectors, Robert Brown’s collection grew so he began selling the lower quality pieces. He was buying moneyboxes here in Britain and selling them to collectors in the USA where they are called savings banks. In the 1950s he was selling them quite cheaply there until he read in an in-flight magazine about the high prices they commanded in America. At that time international telephone calls were not so easy to make. The usual method of communicating quickly was by cable, still expensive as they were paid for by the word. Robert Brown says, “As soon as I arrived in London, I sent a cable to my American agent saying ‘Don’t sell the banks’. When it arrived at the cable office, rumours went round that I owned several American banks.”

Moneyboxes at the
Museum of Childhood Memories

By 1964 Robert Brown realised he was making three times more from dealing in childhood memorabilia than he was earning from being an engineer so he resigned and began dealing full time. He was still more collector than dealer, though, as he says, “I kept the best stuff back and only sold the junk.”

Starting the Museum
On a visit to Scotland, he went to the Edinburgh Museum of Childhood and had the idea of starting his own museum with the multitude of toys, dolls, moneyboxes and other related items stored in his loft. He believes that by then he had one of the largest collections of moneyboxes in the world.

The first museum was located in the small village of Menai Bridge on the Isle of Anglesey, North Wales, and was opened in 1973 by the Marquess of Anglesey. Since then it has moved to larger premises almost opposite the ruins of Beaumaris Castle.

The museum consists of two adjoining buildings with a total of nine rooms for displays, each one with a different theme. The themes are entertainment; pottery and glass; clockwork tin plate toys; children’s moneyboxes and arcade machines; the Prince of Wales Corridor, a trip down memory lane; teddy bears, nursery furniture and push along toys; art gallery; rocking horses and early cycles; the dolls’ house room.

One of the dolls in the museum holds special memories for Robert Brown. He was on a visit to India and visited a doll museum there. He chatted to the curator and, before he left, she presented him with a handmade doll. When he returned home, he sent her a reciprocal gift of a Welsh doll.

The Museum Today
In the past the museum has won the British Tourist Authority, National Heritage Museum of the Year Award. It was voted as the best museum in the UK in the Sunday Express, in ‘1001 Days Out’, a series of weekly articles during the summer of 1990 on top places to visit. The Anglesey Museum of Childhood Memories was the star choice. It has also featured on BBC One’s ‘Blue Peter’ as well as antiques programmes.

Robert Brown retired four years ago at the age of 84 but that hasn’t stopped him working. Now, though, he and his wife only work one day a week at the museum and they have volunteers working there on the other days. He says, “Perhaps it’s time to retire again,” but he laughs as he says it.

The museum contains many objects of interest to collectors of toys, dolls and other childhood memorabilia. There is a fascinating collection of trains and carriages including a British cast-iron locomotive with tender and carriages. Visitors who played with Matchbox and Dinky cars and buses as children won’t be disappointed either, as there are some old favourites here.

Of course, Robert Brown’s particular love is the collection of moneyboxes including the one given to him at birth, now on prominent display. There are other examples in brass, novelty tin plate ones that look like a child’s seaside pail, an old-fashioned radio and a clock and others that were made as holiday souvenirs from Blackpool, Paris and New York. There are even some ceramic ones which tend to be rare as they were smashed to get the money they contained. The museum also has a particularly unusual celluloid moneybox in the shape of a cat.

The secret of the museum’s success must be that it’s not just a delight for any collector of childhood memorabilia but it also brings back happy memories for everybody who remembers the pleasure of playing with toys like these when they were children.

The Anglesey Museum of Childhood Memories
1, Castle Street, Beaumaris, Isle of Anglesey, LL58 8AP
Telephone: 01248 712 498

Copyright © 2007 Carol Fisher