2020 sees the publication of a second volume on Roberts Bros. of Gloucester, whose many products were often marketted under the trade name of Glevum.

Games-Makers 2 the Empire: Roberts Bros. of Gloucester 1890 - 1957 Volume II expands on the range of products and information provided in the first book. It should be available from any good bookshop.

Games-Makers to the Empire

Games-Makers to the Empire: Roberts Brothers of Gloucester, 1890 - 1957
At long last the book about Roberts Brothers, whose main trade mark was 'Glevum', has been published.
Games-Makers to the Empire: Roberts Brothers of Gloucester, 1890 - 1957
573 pages including 242 colour plates of products, 70 colour plates of rules and instructions and numerous black and white images in the text.
ISBN 978-0-9575581-0-6 published by Heritage Matters, priced at £70.
Available from good booksellers and online.



This massive book should be of benefit to games collectors, local historians and almost every museum with local history collections. It describes the comapny recognised as one of the world's biggest makers of games and toys in the first half of the 20th century. The range of products issued over a period of nearly 70 years was astounding, and even now the author admits that he has not seen or examined examples of many of them, despite the large number he has recorded in the book.

The fruit of study and research over more than ten years, “Games-Makers to the Empire: Roberts Brothers of Gloucester, 1890 – 1957” is the first attempt for nearly a century to describe a company which at one time carried the name of Gloucester into parlours and nurseries around the world, and perhaps the first book to look in such detail at the products of any games company.

The Roberts Brothers began their international business on the kitchen tables of houses in Southgate Street and Commercial Road, Gloucester, England. Within a few years they built a cutting-edge factory complex in the city in Tredworth. At its height the firm employed more than 750 people – a significantly large part of the workforce available – and had agencies and offices around the world. Roberts Bros. specialised in games and toys, but also at various times made dolls, soft toys, children’s furniture, dolls’ furniture and dexterity puzzles. By the outbreak of World War II the catalogue extended to 117 pages and nearly 400 titles, but of course others had been introduced and dropped over the period since the company was formally founded in 1894.

Harry Owen Roberts patented the parlour activity game of Piladex in 1890. It involved teams batting a balloon across a string using only their hands. Within a short time the game took off, and H.O. Roberts began to seek legal protection for other games he invented. In 1894 he joined with his brother, John Owen Roberts, to form a company specialising in games and toys. The two brothers were soon able to leave their existing jobs to concentrate on developing the business, which they spread across the world.

In the middle years of the 20th century probably every home in Gloucestershire would have had at least one Roberts game. The products, which they marketed under the trade name of Glevum, included some which could be bought as cheaply as a penny, although others were priced much higher.

The company merged with Chad Valley in the 1950s, largely due to problems caused by World War II, ending the story of a local company that had been both innovative and successful.

The Game of Cricket

If there appears to be a bias towards cricket in these posts, it is purely accidental. This game was a new one to me when I found it, and has a very attractive cover design, so it is worth describing.

The game is played on a cardboard pitch with a set of stumps illustrated at about a quarter of the way in from each end. There are red numbered spots (1-6) in front of the stumps, and these have the numbers 1-6 printed on them, with lines linking each of those numbers to a score or penalty. The bowling side throws a die to determine which of the red spots is used by the bowler, and the bowler then throws the die to discover the effect, which is based on the scores and ways of getting out in the real game. The instructions are pasted inside the lid and unusually contain what appears to be an error, describing the right hand end of the pitch when the left was intended, but it is a minor problem.

The box is printed by chromolithography, but not the board.

I would suggest that the game dates from the late 1920s or early 1930s.

Croquet Race

The New Game of Croquet Race

is a completely new one on me. The pieces are missing from this example, but are unlikely to have been anything more than a die and counters. The game could have been produced by any of a number of makers, including companies such as Spears, but there is a strong possibility that it was made by Roberts Brothers. The board and cover label are chromolithographs, with the board decorated with characters in clothing of a noticeably earlier date than those on the lid, suggesting that the game may have been poroduced initially in the early years of the 20th century, but that this example was produced in the period of or after World War I.

The rules are pasted inside the lid in this example, so it is possible to understand the game, which is simple but clever and as likely to cause dissent amongst the players as the real game of croquet. Players have to follow a track, passing through hoops (for which they gain an extra throw of the die) in order to hit two pegs (halfway and at the end) with exact throws. If they land on a space occupied by an opponent a new throw is used to send that player BACK and the active player FORWARD, so the players are encouraged to use this technique to delay their opponents.

Auctioneer

The Game of Auctioneer.

This is one of those Roberts games that had a fairly long production run. It also demonstrates more readily than many the dangers of making assumptions about dating.
The game uses a series of cards bearing images of items with legs; furniture, animals, fowl, etc. The idea is to match pairs of cards, as in table and chair. This is done either by the unlikely chance that all the cards in one's hands are pairs, or else by buying cards 'at auction' to complete a pair. The snag is that whichever player is auctioneer only declares the number of legs on the card being auctioned, so that bidders are buying sight unseen.
The rules claim that a skilled and amusing auctioneer can cause much fun.
When an item is purchased, the winning bidder becomes the next auctioneer. The balance of the game is in protecting one's stock of cash whilst trying to make the correct matches to be able to lay down on the table a matched pair. The game ends when one of the players runs out of cards in hand, either through pairing them or selling them. The winner, however, is the one with the highest total value of cash in hand and paired cards; singles are not counted.
So far, so good.
The date is, however, unlikely to be that claimed by owners or sellers, although it may be. The usual means by which people date this game is the coins, which are most commonly well-made cardboard reproductions of coins of George V, dated 1916. This leads to claims that the game dates to 1916.
In some instances this is doubtless true, but far more frequently it will be wrong. The game has at least three designs of label, and was in production from the first decade of the 20th century to World War II. The potential for examples to remain on the shelves of shops beyond this must not be overlooked. As in archaeology, a firm date on something only indicates that it is likely to be on or after that date (assuming that the date was not a future one, which can usually be discounted) and not that it is precisely the right date.
So if you have believed that a game may be dated on the basis of the component parts you may be wrong, or if you think that a design for the lid or the game elements points to a specific date, you may be wrong there, too.

The New Game of Cash

This is an interesting game. It uses a squared board for play, and involves moving a square of card around the board. Holes punched into the square reveal the designs on the squares of the board below. The idea is to use the card square to reveal coins (which are then matched by examples from the pot) with the intention of arriving at pre-determined sums.

The winner is the individual who achieves his or her sum correctly. The values are, of course, in pounds, shillings and pence, and the coins are made from card printed in gold and silver to represent the correct look of the original coinage. They imitate guineas and shillings of Edward VII, and are dated to 1905, suggesting 1905 for the initial production date of the game.

The style of it suggests that it might have been issued by either Ordish or, perhaps more likely, Woolley. It may or may not have a link to the Roberts brothers, but it is a very interesting game of precisely the type that they would have developed.

Zoological Lotto

This is a difficult game to identify. It may have been made by Chad Valley in the late 1890s, but images of their game of this name are not easily found.
On the other hand, there is a sense about this box that suggests it may have been a product of either Woolley and Co., or Ordish, both of whom have connections with Roberts Brothers.
If anyone can shed light on this, I shall be interested to hear. This example has only the playing cards (on which the tokens were placed) but no 'caller's cards'.