Jack Odell

John William Odell, engineer and toymaker: born London 19 March 1920; OBE 1968; twice married (two daughters); died Barnet, Hertfordshire 7 July 2007.

The name Matchbox is redolent of any childhood from the late 1950s to the early 1980s. To own a fleet of Matchbox vehicles was almost a rite of passage for boys, whether you treasured them or just smashed them to pieces playing with them. Ironically, however, their origins lay with - horror - a little girl living in north London.

Anne Odell had a habit of taking spiders to school in a matchbox, which not all her classmates cared for. One day in 1952, her father decided to give her something different, and less scary, to take in her Norvic Match Co box, and fashioned a tiny model of a road-roller, crafted in brass and painted red and green. Anne's schoolmates must have gasped in wonder as she slid it open. Jack Odell, her father, was then on the cusp of becoming one of the greatest toymakers Britain had ever known.

A gifted casting engineer who had honed his craft in factories on the outskirts of London, during 1947 Odell had joined a small die-casting company called Lesney Products, co-founded by the unrelated Leslie Smith and Rodney Smith and based in what had been the Rifleman pub in Tottenham, north London. For Odell, the move was a godsend: he had endured a long battle with his local council, who had forbidden him to operate his own die-casting machinery at home. Before the Second World War, during which he had served as an engineer in Italy and North Africa, Odell had been a van driver, a cinema projectionist and an estate agent.

Leslie Smith and Jack Odell soon found themselves owning and running the firm after Rodney Smith sold out, and they churned out any small cast components their customers wanted. But one order for parts for a toy gun would determine their company's destiny.

They realised making their own toys could be lucrative and utilise the Lesney machines' downtime. In Odell, the company had a skilled model-maker and, as it happened, vehicle enthusiast. He set to and designed a range of cast-metal playthings, from a horse-drawn milk cart to a pocket-sized press that could turn bread into fishing bait. They had a couple of best-sellers on their hands when they turned out a beautifully detailed model of the coach used for the Coronation in 1953, selling over a million items, and a metal marionette of the BBC's Muffin the Mule.

Realising, thanks to Anne Odell, that they had yet another promising novelty, in 1953 Smith and Jack Odell launched a range of finely detailed "Matchbox" toy vehicles, sold in tiny cardboard boxes that really were at matchbox-size. Unlike the bigger and costlier Dinky Toys, they weren't just sold at toyshops but through tobacconists and sweet shops, and parents couldn't get enough of them.

Lesney included a production version of the original road-roller (based on an Aveling Barford), Land Rover, London bus, bulldozer and fire engine. In 1954, and at No 19 in the series, came a dainty MG TD, the first Matchbox car. To make them fit the packaging, the various models were hopelessly out of scale with each other, but children didn't mind that, and eventually there were 75 models in the constantly evolving series.

Joint managing directors, Smith ran the business while Odell was in charge of manufacturing and product design. They made a brilliant team, becoming one of the biggest employers in north and east London - especially of women - and the company went public in 1960. They turned out a million toy vehicles a day, and the company was awarded the Queen's Award for Export three times - Matchbox cars went down a storm in the US in 1956; and every employee got a bonus to celebrate. By 1969, Lesney had over a dozen London factories, employing 6,000 and Odell, now a millionaire, was appointed OBE in 1968.

Throughout the company's growth period, the industrious Odell continued to innovate. In 1956, Lesney launched "Models of Yesteryear". They were a step up in size and price from the pocket-money cars, and beautifully presented. They tended to sit proudly on mantelpieces rather than end up at the bottom of toy boxes, and the company appears to have been first to coin the now-corny term "yesteryear".

Other product lines followed, including the larger Superkings cars and trucks and, in 1970, "Superfast" wheels to tackle the new upstarts from Mattel, Hot Wheels.

Odell retired in 1973, but Lesney struggled after his departure, under intense competition from rivals manufacturing in the Far East. He was persuaded back as joint chairman in 1980 but Lesney was declared insolvent in 1982, renamed Matchbox Toys Ltd, and sold to Hong Kong's Universal Toys. Production immediately shifted to Macau.

For Odell, though, it was a chance to start all over again. He acquired some of the former Matchbox die-casting plant and installed it in a new factory in Ponders End, north London. His new company, which he called Lledo, was launched in 1983 with a range of die-cast models called "Days Gone", aimed at the collectors' market rather than children. At first, Lledo struggled, but then Odell and his team tapped into the healthy market for promotional items - most often models of vintage and classic vans and buses carrying promotional livery that were sold as limited editions. Companies, and collecting obsessives, lapped them up.

None the less, he sold his firm in 1996 and, although the Lledo brand was axed in 2005, Odell remained an enthusiastic figure in the toy industry.

Giles Chapman

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