Waddingtons

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British manufacturer of card and board games

title: "Waddingtons" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["card-game-publishing-companies", "board-game-publishing-companies", "playing-card-manufacturers", "companies-based-in-leeds", "history-of-leeds", "british-companies-disestablished-in-1995"] description: "British manufacturer of card and board games" topic_path: "history" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waddingtons" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary British manufacturer of card and board games ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox company"]

FieldValue
nameWaddingtons
logoFile:Logo Waddingtons.jpg
industryBoard & card games
fateAcquired
successor
defunct1994
productsMonopoly
Cluedo
Waddingtons Christmas Jigsaws
Playing cards
foundation19th century (as a printing firm), 1922 (gaming company)
locationLeeds & London
::

| name = Waddingtons | logo = File:Logo Waddingtons.jpg | industry = Board & card games | fate = Acquired | successor = | defunct = 1994 | products = Monopoly Cluedo Waddingtons Christmas Jigsaws Playing cards | foundation = 19th century (as a printing firm), 1922 (gaming company) | location = Leeds & London

Waddingtons was a British manufacturer of card and board games. The company was founded by John Waddington of Leeds, England and the manager, actor and playwright Wilson Barrett, under the name Waddingtons Limited. The name was changed in 1905 to John Waddington Limited, then Waddington's House of Games, then Waddington Games, and finally just Waddingtons.

Founding and history

The company was established as a printing business, and at first 'practically all its business related to the theatre'. It entered into game production in 1922, due to a boom in demand for playing cards around World War I.{{cite journal | first=Jason M. | last=Brown | title=The Tabletop Trio | journal=Knucklebones | date=November 2006 | publisher=Jones Publishing}} Waddingtons subsequently sold both original games (especially tie-ins for UK television programmes) and games licensed from other publishers.

Waddingtons became the UK publisher of the US Parker Brothers' Monopoly, while Parker licensed Waddingtons' Cluedo. In 1941, the British Directorate of Military Intelligence section 9 (MI9) had the company create a special edition of Monopoly for World War II prisoners of war held by the Germans.{{cite web | url=http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/10021 | title= How board game helped free POWs | author=Brian McMahon | publisher=Mental Floss magazine | date=29 November 2007 | access-date=7 December 2007}} Hidden inside these games were maps, compasses, real money and other objects useful for escaping. They were distributed to prisoners by fake charitable organisations.{{cite news | url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/the-northerner/2013/jan/08/history-monopoly-waddingtons-victor-watson-stalag-prisoners-of-war | title=How Monopoly boards got second world war prisoners out of jail free | newspaper=The Guardian | author=Martin Hickes | date=8 January 2013 }}

Victor Watson, the grandson of Victor Hugo Watson was its chairman from 1977 to 1993. While well known for games, they never provided more than 15% of profit; Victor continued his father Norman's emphasis on improving packaging technology, such as folding cartons and microwave trays. From the 1970s, the popularity of video games hurt game sales, and after Victor's retirement, the company was bought by Hasbro in 1994.

Beginning in 1994, Christmas-themed jigsaw puzzles were released annually until 2007. The first twelve in the series depicted a scene from a Victorian-era Christmas. The final puzzle depicted a scene from the fairy tale Cinderella. The small number of puzzles, combined with them being limited editions, has made these puzzles highly collectable.{{cite web | url=https://jigsawjunkies.com/christmas-puzzles/waddingtons-limited-edition-christmas-puzzles/ |title=Waddington's Limited Edition Christmas Puzzles}} Further jigsaws have been produced since 2010 by a new company, using the same brand name.

Games

Among the games published by Waddingtons were:

References

References

  1. David Thornton, ''Leeds: A Historical Dictionary of People, Places and Events'' (Huddersfield: Northern Heritage Publications, 2013), s.v. ''WADDINGTONS''.
  2. 'Obituary: Master of Monopoly who twice trounced Maxwell', ''[[Financial Times]]'', 28 February/1 March 2015, p. 11
  3. (February 26, 2015). "Death of Mr Monopoly, Yorkshire businessman Victor Watson, at 86". The Yorkshire Post.
  4. (March 8, 2015). "Victor Watson, businessman - obituary". The Telegraph.
  5. (January 2023). "Tunbridge Wells Borough Council}}{{dead link".
  6. (27 May 2018). "Waddingtons board games archive reveals wacky finds".
  7. (4 March 2000). "Lexicon {{!}} V&A Explore The Collections".

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

card-game-publishing-companiesboard-game-publishing-companiesplaying-card-manufacturerscompanies-based-in-leedshistory-of-leedsbritish-companies-disestablished-in-1995