Peter William Berthet Ireland, who co-founded Bigjigs Toys with his wife Liz in 1985, died on the 4th October 2026, aged 81.
What began as wooden jigsaws cut from floorboards in a Kent garden shed grew into one of the UK's best-known family-run toy companies, supplying retailers in more than 100 countries. Peter is remembered across the industry as kind, thoughtful and generous, a man who would talk to anyone and who never lost sight of why he started: to make children happy.
A colourful early life
Peter was born in Khartoum in 1945, where his parents were working in Sudan during the 1940s. He was schooled in England and went on to have a varied career before toys found him.
He worked as a salesman for Cadbury's, ran his own convenience stores, and then became a teacher. Each role left its mark: a salesman's ease with people, a shopkeeper's feel for what customers want, and a teacher's belief in how children learn.
From a garden shed to Covent Garden
Bigjigs Toys was born in 1985 in Liz & Peter's garden shed in Kent. While training as a Craft Design teacher, he began making wooden toys in his spare time, and friends and family soon kept asking him to make more.
Realising he was onto something, Peter started cutting wooden jigsaws from floorboards, which he and Liz sold at craft fairs across the UK. Both were teachers by profession, and one school holiday they made the leap: they gave up teaching to run the business full time.
The early puzzles were handmade, cut, painted and packed in that shed, and sold at a weekend market in Covent Garden, London, then the company's only sales outlet. Customer demand pushed the range into magnets, wellie pegs, pencil holders, door plaques and coat hooks, and before long into wooden toys for children of all ages.
Making children happy
Peter's guiding belief was simple: toys should make children happy, and the best ones help them learn at the same time. His years in the classroom gave him a lasting interest in child development, and that thinking shaped Bigjigs from its first floorboard puzzle.
Learning through play remains central to the company's design work in Folkestone. It is the clearest part of the legacy he leaves to the business and to the many families who have grown up with its toys.
A family man
Above all, Peter loved his family. He was always on hand to help, advise, run errands or lend support in any way he could, and his seemingly endless network of friends meant there was always someone he could call to get a job done.
Bigjigs has been family run from day one. Sons Sam and Tom joined the business after finishing their education, and even grandchildren Edith and Arthur have helped design and test the toys.
Peter passed his love of sport on to his sons and grandchildren, and he was a constant presence on the sidelines, cheering them on at every match and every game.
His son Sam Ireland said: “Dad was one of a kind. Hard-working, kind, thoughtful and generous with his time to all who met him.”
Peter is survived by his wife Liz, his sons Sam and Tom, and his grandchildren Edith and Arthur.