The Very Lovely BND Babykins
The lovely B.N.D. “Babykins” a ten inch doll was made by the British National Doll Company and sold through Marks and Spencer stores in the 1950’s. They were also sold boxed and undressed in regular toy shops. The Original box does not have Marks and Spencer mentioned anywhere on it – only “sitting, standing, kicking, crawling Babykins
I certainly don’t recall Babykins being sold boxed at our local Marks and Spencer – what I do remember were large displays of this lovely doll dressed in the most beautiful organdie lace trimmed dresses and bonnets – the dolls were always unboxed sold straight from the counter top and were placed in the different positions that the original box stated. They were the “sitting, standing, kicking, crawling Babykins” — and they could do all these things – just like a real baby.
Ideally sized for a small child to hold and carry. The early Babykins dolls are made from a shiny glossy plastic – and even appear painted. These have not kept as well as the later dolls. The later dolls have a bisque-like finish to the plastic, with healthy rosy cheeks and reddish brown colouring to the hair. Their faces are very life like and beautiful and they have baby fat folds on their limbs. Not unlike the dream babies of an earlier age they have a serene air about them. Some of these little dolls managed to slip through the BND quality control and have mismatched arms or legs with one half of the arm (or leg) matt later plastic and the other half earlier shiny plastic. The dolls can also be mismatched in the colour of the plastic this is quite acceptable – they have not been glued together later. This was probably post war thriftiness and really just adds to their history and charm.
The doll’s normal factory original outfit was a printed cotton or printed organdie dress with matching frilled bonnet. Underneath they wore an attached slip and panties in plain coordinating cotton. They were not given shoes but had white jersey socks on their feet with ribbon tied round the ankles to coordinate with their hats and dresses. The B.N.D dresses are recognisable by the buttons on the clothing made of early white plastic. The buttons resemble fifties shirt buttons with two holes. Small details like this can help when you are trying to determine if an outfit is original or not.
My first Babykins was a present from my Uncle for the Coronation when I was five and the doll’s original outfit was a white snow-suit. I have a very strong memory that the snow suit was made from a knobbly fabric and I remember it had the typical BND buttons on the front.
I was delighted to find some years ago an original factory dressed doll in this early outfit (in pink). I now have the proof that these little dolls came in other outfits and it was not just my imagination.
This snowsuit outfit is found on early dolls which were sold in Woolworths who had a contract to buy them before Marks and Spencers – which would have been ended when M&S took on the line. Needless to say the spec for their dolls would have been of a higher standard hence the change from snowsuit to Organdie dress and bonnet.
You may start with one of these dolls but after holding your first Babykins in the palm of your hand you will realise that it is very difficult to stop at one.Several collectors that I know have dressed five Babykins dolls as the Dionne Quintuplets with stunning results. The dolls eyes sleeping mechanism sometimes interferes with the dolls ability to sleep or gives the eyes a bit of out- of – kilter look this is caused because on some dolls it catches on the stringing elastic this is not a fault.
An interesting note to end on, I have a Effanbee baby doll (American) produced in the late forties which is the same size and identical in modelling to our beautiful Babykins and the doll was also named “Babykins” by Effanbee – another Mould borrowed during the Marshall Aid Programme I suspect.
