Walking with the Ancestors - Wrekin Toy Works

Norah Wellings

Norah Wellings, who is considered by many experts to be the finest ever English designer of soft toys, began her career with the Chad Valley Company in 1919, aged 26. She had finished her formal education at the age of 14, leaving school to care for her invalid father, but embarked on a correspondence course with the London School of Art, studying drawing, painting and sculpture. After her father died, Norah put her skills to good use, rising through the ranks at the Wrekin Toy Works to become a chief designer of the company's cloth doll range by the time of her departure in 1926. Some mystery surrounds Norah's reasons for leaving, although she apparently confided to relatives that the final straw presented itself in the shape of a gift-wrapped dead rat left on her desk when she arrived for work one morning! Regardless of the actual facts behind her departure, it proved to be a momentous decision.