The Kleeware Story

Harry Kleeman

The Kleeman family began making plastics in 1938, buying six Reed Prentice injection moulding machines from the USA. They were installed in a factory in Welwyn Garden City, together with compression moulding machines, under the management of my father Max Kleeman. They made combs from cellulose acetate and ashtrays from phenol and urea. Polystyrene was still a rarity. They first used the tradename Kabroloid and later Kleeware.

During the war the factory turned out combs for the Forces and radio parts for the MOD. Afterwards, production turned to hair slides, toothbrushes (a disaster, later sold to Addis), toys and housewares. The capacity in Welwyn was not enough so they moved to a munitions factory in Aycliffe, Co. Durham. First they had to put in windows - munitions factories don't have any. At its peak there were fifty injection machines and 900 staff moulding and assembling a big range of toys. Much was copied from the USA and later, through royalty agreements. US designs were made here by borrowing the tools. A few weeks moulding was enough to satisfy the British market for a year. However, a design team was built up and at one time there were 6 or 7 people engaged in inventing toys or carving prototype models from acetate or Perspex.

We engaged one eccentric toy inventor who cooked up some clever clockwork designs, but we parted company when he was evicted by Aycliffe council because he kept coal in the bath and repaired his motorcycle in the lounge! Finally he fell foul of the police because he had an illegal collection of guns. He did invent a very good toy gun which shot ping pong balls, as well as some ingenious clockwork toys.
I joined the company after the Army in a very junior capacity but promotion, helped by nepotism, made me director of the Aycliffe plant eventually. We sold toys and housewares to Woolworths in great quantities and exported them round the world. We sold the business to our main competitor, Rosedale, in 1959 (ironically the year my first child was born) because by then we had a flourishing raw material business through the acquisition of Erinoid and we felt we could not compete with our customers.

It was at a talk by Colin Williamson that I was inspired to see if I could collect any of the old Kleeware items. My first foray to the Portobello Road netted an army truck - I was delighted. Since then I have discovered the 'Collectors' Gazette' devoted entirely to old toys and have visited many Toy Fairs. I now have quite a collection of dolls' furniture, model trucks and 'planes, construction kits, money boxes and many more. My latest find is a beautiful toy castle which my grandson helped me assemble.

Housewares are harder to find. I was really pleased to discover a pair of salad servers in the Portobello Road the other day, and I have confiscated a pastry cutter and coat hangers from my wife. A more recent acquisition is a Kleeware urea formaldehyde cigarette box made in the 1940s. We made a few custom moulded items and, while scouring the Portobello Road, was amazed to find a money box in the shape of a globe which we made for the Methodist Missionary Society. I well remember getting the order. I have many more things to find, but my chief 'wants' are a teaset - we made some beautifully designed toy teasets - and any of the Bakelite items labelled Kabroloid. I shall keep searching. If it was easy it wouldn't be fun.