Charles Plimpton
| Charles Bird Plimpton | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | 1893 Peckham, London, England |
| Died | 29 December 1948 (aged 55) Liverpool, England |
| Occupation | Toy inventor, Businessman |
| Known for | Inventor of Bayko |
| Spouse(s) | Margaret Audrey |
| Children | Anne, Jean |
| Parent(s) | John Calvin Plimpton, Caroline Augusta Plimpton (née Bird) |
Charles Bird Plimpton (1893 – 29 December 1948) was an English inventor and businessman. He invented Bayko in 1933, a plastic building model construction toy, and one of the earliest plastic toys to be marketed. He established Plimpton Engineering in Liverpool, England, to manufacture the toy, which was sold across the world for over 30 years.
Charles Plimpton was born in 1893 in Peckham, London, to John Calvin Plimpton, an American citizen, and Caroline Augusta Plimpton (née Bird). Plimpton's father later moved his family to Liverpool where he established his own company, J.C. Plimpton & Co – Import & Export American Merchants.
Charles Plimpton attended school at Liverpool College. In 1911 he went to the University of Birmingham to study Engineering, but only completed two years and dropped out in 1913. During World War I, Plimpton enlisted as a wireless operator with the Royal Navy and served much of his time on minesweepers.
In 1922 Plimpton married Margaret Audrey, with whom he had two daughters, Anne and Jean. They lived in Wallasey, which was then a part Cheshire. In the mid-1920s Plimpton contracted tuberculosis and spent much of the next ten years in a sanatorium. But it was during this confinement that Plimpton began working on the design of a new construction toy. Based on a toy popular in the 1920s and 1930s, the card and wood Mobaco Building Sets made by Mobal in the Netherlands, Plimpton adapted its design to use plastic pieces made from Bakelite. Bakelite was a recently developed synthetic plastic, and, at the time, the world's first commercial plastic.
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