Sir Isaac Newton was a genius of science, but for many Britons of a certain age he is also fondly remembered for lending his name to a classic executive toy. In the 1970s, the steel five-ball Newton’s cradle became a must-have accessory in offices and homes, ushering in a fad for kinetic games and magnetic puzzles.
Now a new book, Loncraine Broxton: Innovations & Executive Toys 1969-1997, published this month, tells the story of the eccentric British company that created these toys as the side hustle of an award-winning film director and an archaeologist.
Design company Loncraine Broxton was the brainchild of two 1960s art-school graduates, Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton. Their products were sold in designer Terence Conran’s shops in London, featured in defining films of the era such as Sunday Bloody Sunday and given to passengers on Concorde to help pass the time on their supersonic flights.
“I never thought anyone would want to do a book about the madness of the 1970s and 1980s. I had no idea people even remembered our Newton’s cradle,” said Loncraine, 78. “It was something to make bank managers a bit less uptight – something silly but acceptable to have on your desk.”
The first pendulum structure demonstrating Newton’s third law of motion, which states that for every action or force in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction, was made by 17th-century French physicist Edme Mariotte.
It was the British actor and voiceover artist Simon Prebble who first coined the name Newton’s cradle and tried to sell a commercial wooden-framed version in 1967. But it was the Loncraine Broxton design called the Ballrace that in 1967 became a £5 bestseller – a slick ornament inspired by a coffee table made from chromed metal by Hungarian-born architect Marcel Breuer.
The Ballrace came in a clear acetate box bearing Newton’s third law printed in four different languages in the Helvetica font, a typeface that was fast becoming associated with advertising and branding.
The aesthetic and price clicked with the zeitgeist, and by 1971 Loncraine Broxton was creating chrome-plated objects for Conran window displays, while its shiny ornaments decorated the new Mr Chow restaurant in west London and its executive toys were featured on the BBC show Tomorrow’s World in a segment about the changing face of the workplace.
The company’s work also appeared in director John Schlesinger’s film Sunday Bloody Sunday. The character Bob, played by Murray Head, was based on Loncraine.
Over time, Loncraine Broxton’s products have become shorthand for a particular sort of bureaucratic mindset. Director Terry Gilliam was inspired by the company to design his own
Newton’s cradle for the 1985 film Brazil, and the toy appears in everything from X-Men – on Magneto’s desk – to the American version of TV’s The Office and in pandemic hit video game Animal Crossing.
Loncraine said the shiny aesthetic of his original toy was down to budget. At that time, Loncraine Broxton was based in a workshop in London’s Clerkenwell next to a plating company: “It was like something out of Dickens – hell with bubbling tanks full of poisonous chemicals.”
The small business could only afford to handmake its products, so getting its neighbour to chrome plate them made sense. “Necessity was the mother of a lot of what we did,” he added. Loncraine became interested in kinetic sculpture while at art school. His work appeared alongside pieces by Yoko Ono and Takis in group shows during the 1960s.
“I became successful but I wasn’t very good,” he said. “I also didn’t like the art world so I got out. I moved into film, which is pretty shitty, but I liked the art world even less.”
He stuck with his puzzle business even as he moved from directing adverts to feature films, though Broxton took a more hands-on role. At the time, the company had hits with its liquid geometry range – quintessentially 1980s liquid puzzles featuring caviar tins, Perrier and champagne bottles – and magnetic kinetic sculptures including magnetic pyramid clips and the toy Magnetic Feel.
Loncraine, meanwhile, directed Michael Palin and Maggie Smith in The Missionary in 1982 and the award-winning Richard III, made with Ian McKellen and Richard Eyre.
On TV, he is best known for The Gathering Storm in 2002, and The Special Relationship in 2010, the latter written by Peter Morgan.
“Ridley Scott took me to lunch to ask me how to get into the film business,” Loncraine recalled. “That turned out quite well.”
The idea of executive toys was a little tired by the 1990s, and the company overexpanded, then made some “stupid” financial decisions and was wound up in 1997.
Loncraine still has all the prototypes and samples in his attic and has recently looked at them for the first time in 25 years. He thinks there would still be a market for them today in a world where stress balls, fidget spinners and offices featuring table football are now the norm.
“No one remembers me for my films,” he said. “I like the idea that I might get to be remembered for designing the Ballrace instead.”
Loncraine Broxton: Innovations & Executive Toys 1969-1997 by Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton (Four Corners Books, £15). To support the Guardian and Observer, order your copy at guardianbookshop.com. Delivery charges may apply.
