Wills’s Happy Families game
Wills’s “Happy Families” cards were issued by the Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland) Limited in around 1930.

Wills’s “Happy Families” cards were issued by the Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland) Limited in around 1930. This was a time when smoking was generally regarded as extremely fashionable and harmless to your health, in some cases even approved by doctors. Each family represents a different brand of Wills cigarettes or tobacco. The packs were presented to retailers as part of an incentive scheme.

Right: the tuck box with the rules printed on the back, and the card back design in red & white. Packs contain 32 cards and were probably printed by Mardon Son & Hall.
REFERENCES & CREDITS
Mary Gardiner & John Hayter: The Catalogue of Happy Family Games, promotional packs, self-published, 1997.

By Rex Pitts (1940-2021)
Member since January 30, 2009
View ArticlesRex's main interest was in card games, because, he said, they were cheap and easy to get hold of in his early days of collecting. He is well known for his extensive knowledge of Pepys games and his book is on the bookshelves of many.
His other interest was non-standard playing cards. He also had collections of sheet music, music CDs, models of London buses, London Transport timetables and maps and other objects that intrigued him.
Rex had a chequered career at school. He was expelled twice, on one occasion for smoking! Despite this he trained as a radio engineer and worked for the BBC in the World Service.
Later he moved into sales and worked for a firm that made all kinds of packaging, a job he enjoyed until his retirement. He became an expert on boxes and would always investigate those that held his cards. He could always recognize a box made for Pepys, which were the same as those of Alf Cooke’s Universal Playing Card Company, who printed the card games. This interest changed into an ability to make and mend boxes, which he did with great dexterity. He loved this kind of handicraft work.
His dexterity of hand and eye soon led to his making card games of his own design. He spent hours and hours carefully cutting them out and colouring them by hand.