Toy tree

View this record on the National Museum of Australia's website

Type: Toy farms
Date: 1860 - 1880
Place: England, United Kingdom
Materials: Paint - non specific, Wood
Collection: Marion Douglas and Pamela Yonge collection
Accession number: 2003.0072.0003.016

Description

A hand-crafted wooden toy tree. It has a tapered brown trunk, and green "leaves" created by shaving the sides of a cylinder of wood into curls. The unpainted circular base plate is broken.

About the collection

This collection consists of two suitcases and a child's farmyard set which belonged to the Eddison family. The suitcases date from the early twentieth century while the farmyard set dates from the mid-nineteenth century. Both suitcases have sustained slight water damage. Some of the figures in the farmyard set have broken legs but overall condition of set is good. The suitcases belonged to Walter Eddison, an Englishman who first came to Australia in 1913. The outbreak of the First World War forced the postponement of Eddison's plans to relocate his young family to Australia. Instead, he joined the AIF and served in Gallipoli and France. When Eddison finally returned to Australia with his family in 1919, he was allocated land in Canberra's Woden Valley as part of the soldier settlement scheme. Walter Eddison's story encompasses several Australian history themes - migration, war, and land settlement.

Read live from the Museum's Collection API (12/11/2026, 6:33:39 am). Record last updated by the Museum 2021-05-11. Licence: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.