Kiddicraft: The History of the Building Brick

Hilary Page: The Man Behind the Brick

Hilary "Harry" Fisher Page was born on 20 August 1904 in Sanderstead, Surrey, in southern England. From an early age, his passion for making his own toys was clear. His father, who worked in the timber trade, once gave him two tons of scrap wood as a birthday present. Not a bad gift for a boy who preferred building to playing football.

After school, Page followed his father into the timber industry. But the idea of developing toys that genuinely benefited children kept pulling at him. In 1932, he took the plunge: with savings of just 100 pounds sterling, Page and a few partners opened a small toy shop in Purley called Kiddicraft. They started by importing wooden toys from Russia, but Page soon began designing his own.

What set him apart from other toymakers of his time was that Page actually watched children play. Systematically. He visited nurseries and pre-schools, studied how small children interacted with toys and drew conclusions for his own designs. The result was an entire product range in plastic covering every stage of early childhood development: stacking games, sorting boxes, beakers, rings and, of course, building bricks. When Kiddicraft went bankrupt in 1937, Page used the enforced break to deepen his observations and put them into writing. In 1938 his first book appeared: Playtime in the First Five Years.

From Wooden Toys to Interlocking Bricks

Because his Kiddicraft partners consistently refused to take the risk of switching to plastic production, Page founded a second company in 1936: British Plastic Toys Ltd, trading as Bri-Plax. Here he developed his so-called "Sensible Toys", child-friendly, colourful, made from plastic and easy to clean. A deliberate break from the wooden toy standards of the time.

One of these Sensible Toys would go on to change everything: the Interlocking Building Cubes. Colourful plastic bricks that could be pressed together. On 17 April 1939, Page filed a patent for the concept at the London Patent Office. It was the world's first patent for a building brick. Further patents followed in 1944, 1945 and 1949, the system was continuously refined, until the Interlocking Building Cubes became the Self-Locking Building Bricks: already very close to the modern brick in shape and grid dimensions.

After the Second World War (Page's production had been temporarily halted due to wartime restrictions on non-essential plastics), the Sensible Toys now also came to market under the original brand name Kiddicraft. The company grew and expanded into France, Germany and Spain. Things were going well, at least for a while.

The LEGO® Connection: A Story That Was Never Fully Resolved

In 1947, Danish toymakers Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred Kirk Christiansen ordered an injection moulding machine in London. The representative of the British machinery manufacturer showed them sample bricks from Kiddicraft as an example of what the machine could produce. What is well documented: the design of the first LEGO® bricks was closely modelled on Page's Self-Locking Bricks.

Exactly what passed between London and Billund can no longer be fully reconstructed. Hilary and Oreline Page visited Denmark in June 1949, but whether they met the Christiansens on that trip is not confirmed. Page's widow and daughters later stated that Page had no knowledge of the LEGO® bricks at all. What is certain: Page had only filed his patents in the United Kingdom and Canada, not in Denmark. The Danish company was therefore free to use the system without legal consequences.

And Hilary Page? He had no idea. He was too preoccupied with his next big project: the Kiddicraft Miniatures, scaled-down toy versions of household objects and food items, for which he negotiated over 300 licensing agreements. The project was heading for failure. Page, who had always struggled financially, saw no way out. On 24 June 1957, he took his own life, without knowing that his invention was, as a Danish building brick, in the process of conquering the world.

In 2007, fifty years after his death, Hilary Page was posthumously awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the British Toy & Hobby Association. The prize was accepted by his three daughters.

Kiddicraft After Hilary Page: Decades in the Background

After Page's death, his widow Oreline and his partners continued to run the company. In 1977, Oreline Page sold the firm to the Hestair Group. In 1981, LEGO® acquired all rights to the Kiddicraft designs from Hestair for 45,000 pounds sterling. A belated acknowledgement of just how significant the original had been.

In 1989, the Kiddicraft brand name changed hands again. The US toy giant Fisher-Price took over the rights. Under Fisher-Price (later part of the Mattel group), the brand was used until the mid-1990s, but with no connection whatsoever to the original building brick system. In 2001, the company abandoned the name entirely.

Kiddicraft disappeared. For over two decades.

The Revival: Thorsten Klahold and Johnny's World

Anyone who follows the building brick scene knows Thorsten Klahold. Known on YouTube as Johnny's World, he is one of the most prominent German-language brick creators. What many people do not know: he is also the man who brought Kiddicraft back.

Klahold secured the trademark rights to Kiddicraft and founded Dark-Side-Bricks GmbH. There is more behind this than a brand registration: a six-figure sum was invested in figures, sets, design and intellectual property protection. In 2022, after the opposition period had expired, Klahold went public with the project.

The centrepiece of the new Kiddicraft world is the KIDDIZ figure, a custom-designed character that is 100% compatible with the LEGO® system without infringing its protected 3D trademark. A genuine alternative, legally sound and with its own personality. The first sets became available in 2023 and the community embraced them warmly.

What Klahold is doing with Kiddicraft is not just a nostalgia project. It is an attempt to give an unjustly forgotten brand back the place it deserves: as a brand from the community, for the community.

We at KiSebA do not take building brick alternatives at face value. Anyone who has ever held a cheap clone knows why: wobbly connections, colours that fade after one season, instructions that confuse more than they help. With Kiddicraft, we found none of that. Brick quality, fit, print quality, all convincing. That is why Kiddicraft is part of our range.

Kiddicraft Today: Sets, Figures and Quality

The current range covers five worlds: Brickfarm with farm sets, tractors and animal enclosures, Bricity with a fire station, police and Uschi's legendary sausage stand, Herocraft with knights, orcs and dungeons, Moin with maritime sets for North Sea fans and the KIDDIZ Packs with over 15 figure themes. All sets are 100% compatible with the LEGO® system, suitable from age 5 and Designed in Germany.

Conclusion: A Brand That Deserves Its Place

Hilary Page had the idea. He developed the grid dimensions, filed the patents, brought the building brick into the world and never learned what came of it. Kiddicraft faded into obscurity, first through Fisher-Price, then through two decades of silence.

That Thorsten Klahold has brought this brand back, with genuine passion, genuine investment and genuine sets, is more than a clever marketing move. It is a belated acknowledgement of a man and a brand that invented the building brick.

And the quality backs that up. We recommend Kiddicraft, not because the story is a good one, but because the sets are.

Discover Kiddicraft in the KiSebA shop:
To the Kiddicraft overview, or dive straight into one of the worlds: Herocraft | Moin | KIDDIZ Packs