public limited company industry toys headquarters watford england number of locations 229 products educational toys parent mothercare website www.elc.co.uk the early learning centre is a british chain of shops selling toys for very young children . contents 1 history 1.1 takeovers 2 product range 3 other meanings of the word 4 references 5 external links history edit early learning centre in harrogate north yorkshire 2013 originally set up as a mail order company in 1974 and based near swindon by 1980 it had ten shops and it has grown to include 215 shops in the united kingdom and over 80 in 19 other countries including qatar the united arab emirates canada and australia . in addition their toys are available in some debenhams boots & sainsbury s stores . since 2001 the company also sells their products via their website . in the 1980s elc opened a number of nursery stores which sold equipment such as pushchairs and cots . until 1991 the chain also had stores in the united states . over 80 % of products sold are own brand being designed at a research centre in hong kong . takeovers edit in may 1985 john menzies rescued early learning centre . 1 sales struggled in the late 1990s . after some years the company s board of directors led by mike france bought the company back in october 2001 for 30m being backed by 3i before selling it to tim waterstone who founded waterstones bookstores under the name eagle retail investments for 62m in april 2004 and he joined it with his daisy & tom chain of shops within the chelsea stores group . in june 2007 early learning centre was purchased by mothercare for 85m from chelsea stores holdings . mothercare has continued to expand the high street presence of elc by opening additional stores ; mainly as concessions within over 100 mothercare stores . product range edit they are known for selling products which use wood such as plywood and chinese maple . toys are designed to be primarily about play with a focus on educational and developmental aspects . early learning centre playtest their toys to check they can withstand the expected knocks and bumps and employ various techniques into their manufacturing process such as ultrasonic welding and use of plastics . other meanings of the word edit in australia & new zealand an early learning centre often abbreviated to elc can mean a preschool or kindergarten . references edit john menzies history see 1985 section external links edit elc official site retrieved from https en.wikipedia.org w index.php title early learning centre & oldid 740549725 categories retail companies of the united kingdomcompanies based in wiltshirecompanies established in 1974early childhood education in the united kingdomeducational toy retailerstoy companies of the united kingdom3i group companieshidden categories use british english from november 2014use dmy dates from november 2014 navigation menu personal tools not logged intalkcontributionscreate accountlog in namespaces article talk variants views read edit view history more search navigation main pagecontentsfeatured contentcurrent eventsrandom articledonate to wikipediawikipedia store interaction helpabout wikipediacommunity portalrecent changescontact page tools what links hererelated changesupload filespecial pagespermanent linkpage informationwikidata itemcite this page print export create a bookdownload as pdfprintable version in other projects wikimedia commons languages add links this page was last modified on 21 september 2016 at 19 29 . text is available under the creative commons attribution sharealike license ; additional terms may apply . by using this site you agree to the terms of use and privacy policy . wikipedia is a registered trademark of the wikimedia foundation inc. a non profit organization . privacy policy about wikipedia disclaimers contact wikipedia developers cookie statement mobile view