J. W. Spear and Sons was a manufacturer of

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a co ...

s during the 20th century. The company was founded by Jacob Wolf Spier (1832-1893) in

Fürth Fürth (; East Franconian: ; yi, פיורדא, Fiurda) is a city in northern Bavaria, Germany, in the administrative division ('' Regierungsbezirk'') of Middle Franconia. It is now contiguous with the larger city of Nuremberg, the centres of the ...

, near

Nuremberg Nuremberg ( ; german: link=no, Nürnberg ; in the local East Franconian dialect: ''Nämberch'' ) is the second-largest city of the German state of Bavaria after its capital Munich, and its 518,370 (2019) inhabitants make it the 14th-largest ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

in 1879. They initially producing goods such as table mats, photo frames, and waste-paper baskets. By the turn of the century, games had become their main product. In 1932, the company set up a factory in

Brimsdown Brimsdown is a neighbourhood of eastern Enfield in the London Borough of Enfield, north London, on the west side of the mid-to-lower Lea Valley. Geography The east of Brimsdown, that is, east of the eastern Lea Valley line is one of the borough ...

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) ...

Britain Britain most often refers to: * The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands * Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...

to avoid customs duties. With the rise to power of the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

and the Spier family being

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

, some members of the family moved to Britain and subsequently Anglicised their name to Spear. The Nuremberg factory was forcibly "purchased" by a German businessman, and survived most of

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 opposing ...

under Nazi control until the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

bombed it. The UK factory switched to military production during the war and then returned to making games. In 1954 the company acquired the rights to produce and market ''

Scrabble ''Scrabble'' is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles, each bearing a single letter, onto a game board divided into a 15×15 grid of squares. The tiles must form words that, in crossword fashion, read left t ...

'' for markets outside North America. As well as board games they made the '' Brickplayer'' construction toy. The company was floated on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St P ...

in 1966 and was taken over by

Mattel Mattel, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational toy manufacturing and entertainment company founded in January 1945 and headquartered in El Segundo, California. The company has presence in 35 countries and territories and sells products in more ...

in 1994 after a bidding war with

Hasbro Hasbro, Inc. (; a syllabic abbreviation of its original name, Hassenfeld Brothers) is an American multinational conglomerate holding company incorporated and headquartered in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Hasbro owns the trademarks and products of K ...

. Mattel closed the UK factory and while it still produces ''Scrabble'', most of the traditional Spear's Games are no longer made. About 2000 old games were collected in an archive by the former chairman Francis Spear. In 2017 the UK archive was closed and the games moved to the German Games Archive in Nuremberg. They are gradually being photographed and uploaded to a database. Some are on Google Arts & Culture.

References

External links

J. W. Spear at the V&A Museum of Childhood websiteSpear’s Games, Bello ring toss, ca. 1915, in the Island Historical Society Online Collections Database
Manufacturing companies established in 1879 Board game publishing companies Companies disestablished in 1994 Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom History of the London Borough of Enfield Mattel subsidiaries Toy companies of the United Kingdom German companies established in 1879 Scrabble in the United Kingdom Companies acquired from Jews under Nazi rule {{DEFAULTSORT:J. W. Spear and Sons