Price includes UK delivery.
 
A wooden Noah’s Ark playset manufactured by the War Relief Toy Works.
 
The company, based on Church Street, Stoke Newington, London, employed disabled servicemen following the First World War (1914-1918). Records show that pieces from the Works were displayed at both the 1922 and 1929 British Industries Fair.
 
A variety of sizes and colour schemes were available as indicated by their catalogue, this being one of their more compact examples. It is marked twice to the underside ‘MADE IN ENGLAND BY DISABLED EX-SERVICE MEN’.
 
The menagerie includes nineteen animals – lions, tigers, elephants and bears to name but a few – along with Noah and his wife. These simple, silhouette-shaped figures are both robust and tactile retaining their original painted surfaces.
 
The hinged roof opens to reveal a printed verse (applied from new) which reads:
 
God saw men's wicked ways
And nipped them in the bud.
He let it rain for forty days
And drowned them in a flood.

The bad all died, but mark!
God saved good Noah's life.
He saved him in a mighty Ark
With his three sons and wife.

And two of every kind
Of insect, beast and bird -
As He has said. For you will find
God always keeps his word.

So now with you and me -
Be this well understood!
If bad, we too shall punished be.
But helped if we are good.
 
Overall, in good original playworn condition.
 
English, made in London, circa 1920.
 
Dimensions of the Ark:
Height 21.8cm
Length 37.5cm
Width 13.5cm