Teddy Bear Chronology

(from The Little History of the Teddy Bear by Michele Brown)

1834	Robert Southey writes Goldilocks and the Three Bears
1894	German toy company Gebrüder  Sussenguth show a stuffed bear toy in their catalogue.
1897	Bear skittles and ‘roly-poly’ toy bears feature in the Steiff catalogue and the Steiff company takes its own stand at the Leipzig toy fair.
1899	Margarete Steiff registers patents for 23 of her soft toy designs, including  a dancing bear and a bear handler with a brown bear.
1902	November.  Morris Michtom sells the first ‘Teddy’s Bear’ in his Brooklyn shop.
1903	March. Steiff Company sells 3000 of its 55PB bear to America.
1906	May.   First advertisement for plush bear toys, still called Bruins, in the American toy trade magazine Playthings.
1906	November.  First advertisement using the words Teddy Bear, by American manufacturer E.J. Horsman, in the American toy trade magazine Playthings.
1907	Dean’s Rag Book Company publishes Teddy Bear, by Alice Scott, illustrated by Sybil Scott Paley.
1907	Seymour Eaton publishes The Roosevelt Bears newspaper strip in book form (USA)
1907	Music of the famous song, The Teddy Bear’s Picnic, written by American composer J.K. Bratton.  Originally called The Teddy Bear Two Step.
1908	Dean’s Rag Book Company advertises cut out and sew teddy bears in Home Chat magazine.
1908	Large plush bear, unidentified, appears in a Dean’s advertisement.
1908	J.K. Farnell company makes the first British teddy bears.
1909	First cartoon animated teddy-bear cartoon, Little Johnny and the Teddy Bears, made in the USA.
1911	The Bruin Boys first appearance in Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopaedia.
1912	Steiff create black teddy bears to give as mourning gifts after the sinking of the Titanic.
1915	Dean’s advertise plush teddy bears, made  in their new workshop, in their Kuddlemee toys catalogue.
1919	First non-stop Atlantic flight by teddy bears when aviation pioneers Alcock and Brown take teddy bear mascots with them on record breaking flight.
1919	First British comic-strip teddy bear character, Bobby Bear, published in the Daily Herald
1920	First Rupert Bear picture story,  Little Lost Bear, written and illustrated by Mary Tourtel, appears in the UK newspaper, The Daily Express.
1921	German company Schuco patent the Yes/No bear
1921	J.K. Farnell set up the Alpha works, making bears designed by Cybil Kent.
1924	First colour animation film with a teddy bear theme when Walt Disney produces Alice and the Three Bears
1926	First Edition of Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne, published.
1930	First teddy bears made by UK firm Merrythought with designs by Florence Atwood
1930	Lyrics of The Teddy Bear’s Picnic written by Jimmy Kennedy and set to the  original music written in 1907.
1938	H.M. Queen Elizabeth (now The Queen Mother) grants a Royal Warrant to
1939	British teddy bear makers  Chad Valley.
1944	Smokey Bear adopted as the mascot of the United States Forest Fire Prevention Campaign.
1948	'Biffo' The Bear appears for the first time in The Beano
1952	First appearance of Sooty, the teddy bear glove puppet  and magician, on British television.
1953	Steiff celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Steiff bears with a new style bear, ‘a comical young bear cub’, called  Jackie Baby.
1954	Wendy Boston, Welsh toy maker,  produces the first truly washable teddy bear.
1958	Publication of the first Paddington story, A Bear Called Paddington, by Michael Bond.
1959	Walt Disney acquire the rights to Winnie-the-Pooh.
1962	Colonel Bob Henderson launches The Teddy Bear Club
1962	Margaret Baker publishes The Shoe Shop Bears
1969	Peter Bull publishes Bear With Me (USA The Teddy Bear Book)
1969	Jim Ownby launches the charity Good Bears of the World.
1975	Walt Disney’s first animated film of Winnie-the-Pooh appears.
1979	Peter Bull designs his traditionally styled Bully Bears for House of Nisbet.
1979	Marquis of Bath organises the Great Teddy Bear Rally at Longleat.
1981	Peter Bull’s 1907 American bear, Delicatessen, stars in the television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited.
1985	Christie’s of London hold the first ever teddy bear only auction.
1988	Gyles and Michele Brandreth found The Teddy Bear Museum in William Shakespeare’s home town of Stratford upon Avon
1989	First British Teddy Bear Festival held in London.
1989	Happy Anniversary, a 1926 tipped mohair Steiff bear, is sold at auction in London for £55,000 to American Paul Volpp as a 42nd wedding anniversary gift for his wife, Rosemary.
1990	First Steiff UK Limited Edition.
1990	Hermann Teddy Original 75th Anniversary Limited Edition
1990	Merrythought Diamond Jubilee Limited Edition.
1994	Teddy Girl, a 1904 cinnamon Steiff bear formerly owned by Colonel Bob Henderson, is sold at auction in London for £110,000 to Yoshihiro Sekiguchi, founder of the Teddy Bear Museum in Izu, Japan.
1996	Teddy Edward, the world’s most travelled bear, is bought at auction by Yoshihiro Sekiguchi of the Izu Teddy Bear Museum for £34,500
1998	Guinness (8.5 mm tall), made by Lynn Lumb of Halifax, England, enters The Guinness Book of Records as the world’s smallest teddy bear.