Towards the end of the war many British firms were looking for ways to diversify away from arms and military manufacture.
One such firm was Signalling Equipment Limited, or SEL as it is more commonly known. They had considerable experience in the use of thermosetting plastics and were looking for an outlet for this experience.
Technical toys seemed such an area and from about 1946 a far reaching range were produced under the SEL name, including magnetic compasses, Morse code senders, a model lighthouse, traffic lights and railway signals, a shocking coil, telescopes, students’ microscopes, binoculars, electric motors and of course, steam toys.
The latter comprised four stationary engines, 3 single-cylinder models named ‘Minor’, ‘Junior’ and ‘Standard’ and a twin-cylinder ‘Major’, plus a large range of beautifully made workshop machinery. All the engines shared the same size cylinder and flywheel, only the boiler, burner and base plate changing size. They later made a steam launch unit with a die-cast cylinder that was subsequently sold separately, or as the ME3, in the Mamod range.
The drawings for the steam engines are known to have been started during 1944, the Minor being dated 26 September 1944, and production probably began in 1947.
The engines were unusual in their use of thermosetting plastics for the engine mountings but they were not particularly powerful and the burners were prone to overheating and unexpectedly erupting in flames. They were however brightly packaged and well advertised and sold reasonably well through the marketing and sales skills of J & L Randall, or Merit as they were better known, of whom SEL became a subsidiary.
The accessories were as follows;
Fan
Grinder
Vertical drill
Lathe
Milling machine
Hacksaw
Circular saw
Power press
Lineshaft
The tools were magnificent replicas of contemporary machine tools; look at the detail on the lathe, but were an uninspired black and chrome that was hardly likely to get a child exited, unlike the colourful traditional steam toy accessories. The movement too, was limited. You cannot see the difference if the lathe headstock is moving or not!
In later years they marketed the glorious tin-plate ‘toc-toc’ speed boat, Miss England’ whilst some of the later production was sold with a simplified red base and/or with the Merit trademark.
The SEL boilers were always heated by conventional liquid meths burners which were increasingly recognised as a safety hazard and probably contributed to the discontinuation of the range in the 60’s.
Bob Fleming January 2010
