Hilary Fisher Page

Post WWII, Page designed and produced the Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Bricks,[8] that have been described as the "original LEGO".[9] These were smaller, refined versions of the Interlocking Building Cube. Bricks could be stacked on each other and were held in place by studs on the top. The bricks also featured slits on their side that allowed panel-like doors, windows or cards to be inserted. He patented the basic design, a 2 X 4 studded brick, in 1947. This was later followed by patents for the side slits (1949) and the baseplate (1952), designs featured in exhibits at the Brighton Toy and Model Museum.[10]

The Kiddicraft Self-Locking Building Brick sets were first marketed in 1947. As a promotion Page and his family built large display models for the 1947 Earl's Court Toy Fair.[11] The Victoria and Albert Museum of Childhood in London lists the bricks among the "must have toys" of the 1940s.[12] Ole Kirk Christiansen and his son Godtfred became aware of the Kiddicraft brick after examining a sample, and possibly drawings, given to them by the British supplier of the first injection moulding machine they had purchased. Realising their potential, Ole modified the Kiddicraft brick and in 1949 marketed his own version, The Automatic Binding Brick, that became the Lego brick in 1953.[13][14]

Page was reportedly never aware of this according to his family, and the company Lego Ole Christiansen founded expanded into Western Europe. British Lego Ltd. was set up in late 1959 and the first sets were sold the following year. Lego eventually acquired the rights to the residual rights in the Kiddicraft brick designs in 1981. In an out-of-court settlement Lego paid UK £45,000 to the new owners of Page's company Hestair-Kiddicraft. It has subsequently removed all reference to Page and Kiddicraft from its published history,[15][16].