SKYBIRDS FIGURES and SGT ALFRED J. HOLLADAY CIV

As mentioned HERE, the idea for the Public Schoolboys (Minor) Brigade originated in an Ebay "joblot" purchase. The "joblot figures" were wholly unidentified, and thrown together in a large pile for the seller's (rather dimly lit and uninviting) photograph. No scales, heights or measurements of any kind were given, and nobody was bidding on these chipped and rather sad lead men. But they were clearly wearing British helmets and greatcoats....and they were very, very cheep.....

Now (borne out by hard experience) the risk with these Ebay lots is that one finishes up with useful fishing weights, rather than useable figures, but sometimes, just sometimes.....

Reorganised, rebased, repainted Ebay joblot

......things actually do work out. The figures turned out to be slightly larger than 20mm in height, but by no means giving the impression of 1/72 or 1/76 scale - possibly because they were modelled with a substantial "girth" - rather like, back in the 1970s, Minifigs 25mm were "smaller but stouter" than the leaner Hinchliffe 25mm. The few figures with broken rifles had the remnants of their Lee-Enfields replaced with 28mm Lewis Guns from "Colonel Bills" without any apparent visual ill effect. Some simple spraying and painting later, and four sections of "schoolboy infantry" emerged -

Mitigating height difference - the schoolboys have acquired "thicker than usual" MDF bases.
Their comparators are 28mm First Corps refugee figures - to the left on the usual plastic base
and to the right unbased. A reasonable fit - and First Corps are not the smallest 28mm.

Never having seen figures of this type before, however, the nagging questions remained - who had made them, and when? A bit of research later, and the answers emerged. Who? A.J.Holladay & Co. Ltd (trading as "Skybirds" and "Givjoy") of 3, Aldermanbury Avenue, London EC2. When? From 1936 - mid 1940s, which made these figures (or at least their moulds) quite as old as the VBCW itself !

Confirmation - Skybirds British Infantry on a reproduction header card.

A chance find in the Airfix Magazine back catalogue (see HERE) confirmed that the range of Skybirds figures included British Infantry, and yielded some useful line illustrations. The same article disclosed that modellers and wargamers were already waxing nostalgic about the Skybirds range more than fifty years ago!

Airfix Magazine 1969.

The figure range seems to have been ancillary to Skybirds' main business, i.e. the production of aircraft kits and accessories:

Proper "old skool" modelling - the Skybirds Fairey Battle kit

Suitable for 1938 - the Skybirds Gloster Gladiator

It appears that Skybirds were the first to introduce 1/72 scale for aircraft models - long before companies such as Airfix or Revell entered the scale modelling market. Compatibility between man and machine then explained the (nominally) 1/72 scale of Skybirds figures:

AA guns naturally follow aircraft - Skybirds produced a complete AA set, including 
sound detectors and height/track predictors with crew.

Investigation of the "Skybirds" range produced something even more interesting, however - some information about the proprietor of the company, Alfred J. Holladay. Some twenty or so years before he started producing his ground breaking 1/72 models, A.J. Holladay had produced one of the very first sets of wargame rules:

and a boxed set of  Victorian - era soldiers to go with them:

"Wargames for Boy Scouts" identifies the author as "Sergt. A.J. Holladay, late C.I.V." - it's very likely, therefore, that Holladay fought in the Boer War as a City of London Imperial Volunteer. The Victorian era flavour of the rules is inescapable from Holladay's own introduction, beginning "...I say, comrades...." !

For those that care to examine such early rules (apparently first published in 1910, and therefore three years before H.G. Wells "Little Wars") a complete PDF of "Wargames for Boy Scouts" has kindly been made available for free download by Jonathan Linneman on HIS BLOG.

Holladay therefore appears to have started out as a mixture of the Donald Featherstone and Peter Gilder of his day, before going on to a remarkably entrepreneurial career in military modelling and production. Sadly completely forgotten now......and all of this information from an Ebay joblot of unidentified lead men.....

Notes:

(1). Jonathan Linneman's TMP thread (from 2016) on the "Wargames for Boy Scouts" rules is HERE

(2). The "History of Wargaming Project" by John Curry publishes a book ("The Wargaming Pioneers") including these rules, together (amongst others) with "The Liddell Hart Wargame" from 1935 - see HERE

(3). The Brighton Toy and Model Museum Index has more information on the Skybirds range HERE

(4). There is a lengthy and interesting thread on Skybirds 1/72 aircraft on the "Solid Model Memories" message board HERE. Lots of photos of 1930s aircraft models !