Sawyer Toys was a business run by Alec Sawyer, my late father. Although he had always made wooden toys as a hobby, the company started in the early eighties after he was made redundant from an engineering management job at Johnson Radley in Leeds.

First of all he found work as a general woodworking business, and he spent time building kitchens and replacing window frames before concentrating on the toys. Things progressed from local craft shops in Yorkshire through to supplying Fortum & Mason's in London with dolls houses.

The last customer before he retired was a man who ran a company selling magic tricks. He would come to dad with ideas for tricks, or a fragile prototype, and dad would apply his engineering knowledge to produce a quality product out of wood that would subsequently be sold to magicians throughout the country.

This site will collect together some images and memories from the company.

Tim Sawyer 2023