The teddy bear Companion

The teddy bear and other soft plush toys were dear to most of us during our childhoods. At one time or another we all had a favorite teddy bear of soft toy, childhood would not have been the same without that favorite friend and treasured companion. A  Bear, seal, panda bear, frog or even a sock monkey to name just a few were dragged around by a tail or ear or cuddled every night.

The First Teddy Bear

The first  bear was first created by the Steiff company, but there were many other that came on the scene to create top notch soft toys. J.K. Farnell. a manufacturer based in London was a family business founded in 1840. J. K. Farnell started out as a silk merchant manufacturing small silk goods like pincushions. Their expertise and fine needlework skills that were required to make such items, would serve them very well in the future.

Teddy Bear Alpha

After John Farnell died in 1897, Henry and Agnes Farnell, Farnell’s son and daughter, moved the company to a leased property in west London, called The Elms. It was at this new location where their first soft toys and bears were made. After initially using unusual materials to create their the teddy bear, they eventually turned to much higher quality mohair plush and produced a line of quality soft toys and stuffed bears. With the imaginative designs of Sybil Kemp, J.K. Farnell kept producing first rate soft toys; Alpha Bears were among these. This was a range of stuffed bears that strongly resembled the classic teddy bear of 1905 which Richard Steiff had designed. In the early 1920s.

Winnie the Pooh

In 1921, Harrods of London stocked the Alpha Bear and one was purchased by A.A. Milne, the famous author and creator Winnie the Pooh.  A.A. Milne bought the bear as a present for his son, Christopher Robin’s first birthday.  A book of poems was published by Milne in 1924 and illustrated by E. H. Shepard. It included the poem, “Teddy Bear”. This was the first appearance of Pooh, a little bear with a weight problem. In 1926 A. A. Milne published the first chapter of the Winnie the Pooh stories about Christopher Robin, Pooh, Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, Roo and Tigger.  Christopher Robin always referred to the original Farnell teddy as Edward Bear and it can be found in at the New York Public Library along with Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga and Roo, and Tigger.

Of course, Winnie the Pooh is probably the most famous of all the Bears, but there are thousands and thousands of soft toys available as well as every kind of Bear imaginable. There is a stuffed Bear for every occasion and interest.