Astra-Pharos Co

Around 1918 an ex RFC pilot Frank Weldon teamed up with Charles Freeman to form two electrical engineering companies. Motolite Dynamos Ltd of Landor Road, Askew Street, London W12 and Astra Dynamo Co. Ltd of 124, Victoria Street, London SW1, where they were both directors. Astra Dynamo Co. Ltd produced a range of lighting sets and dynamos for motorcycles.

In December 1922 the trademark Pharos was registered to Motolite Dynamos Ltd and 18 months later in May 1924 the trademark ASTRA was registered to Charles Teverill Freeman and Frank Yonge Urquhart Weldon. The Pharos trademark was transferred to Astra Dynamo Co. Ltd in August 1927 and in 1929 the company together with Motolite Dynamos went into voluntary liquidation. At the same time the two trademarks were transferred to Charles Freeman. Later in 1929 Freeman and Weldon formed a new company Astra-Pharos Ltd, trading from the old premises of Motolite Dynamos. The Landor Road site was a large end terraced house and the adjoining mid terraced property. Both had been converted into a small factory. Astra-Pharos remained there until the company ceased trading in January 1975. The building was still being used as an engineering works in the mid 1990s, but by 2004 it had been refurbished and converted into flats.

Boxes and Labels

The earliest boxes were made from buff coloured cardboard and had a simple white label attached with the words "ASTRA (registered)", "British Made" and the name of the model. For a limited time in this early period box lids and bases were coloured mid blue with a "cracked ice" pattern in gold printed on them. Once the "ASTRA" trademark had been granted the box lids and bases were coloured matt pale grey/green and the white label changed to read "ASTRA trade mark", "Made in London, England" and the name of the model. The one exception being the two-inch diameter searchlight box which had a white label with a black and white illustration of the model printed on it. These grey/green boxes can be deceptive, because in bright light they fade and take on a buff appearance. In about 1936 the box labels changed completely. They were now coloured blue, yellow and white and bore a new ASTRA logo in a diamond shape. This style and colour of labels remained unchanged until production of toys ceased.

When the new military range was introduced all the boxes were changed to a shiny light bright green. This green had darkened in colour by 1939. As supplies of green boxes dried up during the war, good quality buff coloured boxes were re-introduced.

Post war, the buff coloured boxes were continued with the pre war blue, yellow and white labels. However the quality of the cardboard used to make the boxes was poor. Astra-Pharos was successful in purchasing some empty boxes for wartime gas masks and these were used for round-based searchlights and number five anti-aircraft guns with the usual Astra labels attached.

Late 1940s, early 1950s saw the introduction of a new style of box for the traffic and railway signal range and for the new miniature searchlight. These boxes were made of thin white cardboard with an illustration of the model on the box, together with the model name, the Astra logo and address and operating instructions all printed in green ink.

The editor would like to thank David Booth for his help and assistance in compiling the information, for more detailed information please see ‘The Toys of Astra-Pharos’ £14.95 (ISBN 978 0 9556361 0 3) published by Mr Booth.