Leslie Charles Smith, OBE (6 March 1918 – 26 May 2005), was a co-founder of

Lesney Products Lesney Products & Co. Ltd. was a British manufacturing company responsible for the conception, manufacture, and distribution of die-cast toys under the "Matchbox" name. The company existed from 1947 until 1982. History Lesney was founded on 19 J ...

, the company famous for making

Matchbox Phillumeny (also known as phillumenism) is the hobby of collecting different match-related items: matchboxes, matchbox labels, matchbooks, matchcovers, matchsafes, etc. Matchbox A matchbox is a box made of cardboard or thin wood and designe ...

cars.

Biography

Smith was born in

Enfield Enfield may refer to: Places Australia * Enfield, New South Wales * Enfield, South Australia ** Electoral district of Enfield, a state electoral district in South Australia, corresponding to the suburb ** Enfield High School (South Australia) ...

Middlesex Middlesex (; abbreviation: Middx) is a Historic counties of England, historic county in South East England, southeast England. Its area is almost entirely within the wider urbanised area of London and mostly within the Ceremonial counties of ...

, left school at the age of 14, and was working for J. Raymond Wilson, a

die-casting Die casting is a metal casting process that is characterized by forcing molten metal under high pressure into a mold cavity. The mold cavity is created using two hardened tool steel dies which have been machined into shape and work similarly ...

company, as an export buyer in London when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

broke out in 1939, whereupon he joined the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against F ...

. He served with Rodney Smith, and after the war had ended, in 1947, they founded Lesney Products. The name 'Lesney' was formed by combining their first names. He married Nancy Jackson-Moore in 1948. Following Lesney's success with Matchbox cars, Lesney Products was awarded the

Queen's Award to Industry The Queen's Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation, sustainable development or promoting opportunity (through social mobility). They are the highest ...

in 1966, and he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 1968. Lesney Products was declared insolvent in 1982. Leslie Smith then became chairman of the board of governors for St Paul's School, Winchmore Hill and another school in north London, where he lived until his death. He had two sons and a daughter.Obituary at The Independent

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Leslie 1918 births 2005 deaths People from Enfield, London Officers of the Order of the British Empire Royal Navy personnel of World War II 20th-century English businesspeople