Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke

Who was Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke?

Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke was the son of Joseph Tom Lowke, a Northampton boilermaker and his wife, Eliza, and is noted for having founded the firm of Bassett-Lowke which specialised in producing construction sets, and model railways, boats and ships. He was married to Florence Jane Jones on 21 March 1917.

Bassett-Lowke was actively interested in modern design, notably becoming a patron of the architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh, who remodelled Basset-Lowke's home at 78 Derngate, Northampton. Now a Grade II* listed building, the house is now open as a museum and visitor attraction. He also employed the services of the stained glass artist E.W. Twining to provide much of his company's graphic identity. His close contacts with German toy manufacturers, particularly Gebruder Bing, introduced him to the very advanced state of design in Germany and organisations such as the Deutscher Werkbund. He was quick to join its British equivalent, The Design and Industries Association, founded at the opening of the Great War. It is notable that in 1925-6 Lowke commissioned the German architect-designer Peter Behrens to design his house 'New Ways' in Northampton rather than any UK architect. Lowke professed to Fabian socialist politics and greatly admired George Bernard Shaw. He supported Stephan Bing and other members of the family when, as Jews, they fled Nazi Germany to the UK in 1933.