Bassett-Lowke

Bassett-Lowke was a toy company in Northampton, England, founded by Wenman Joseph Bassett-Lowke in 1898 or 1899, that specialized in model railways, boats and ships, and construction sets. Bassett-Lowke started as a mail-order business, although it designed and manufactured some items.

Bassett-Lowke was a sales organization, contracting manufacturers such as Twining Models and Winteringham Ltd, also of Northampton. Until World War One, the company also carried models made by Bing and Marklin.

Today the name Bassett-Lowke is mostly associated with detailed model trains but the company also had a long history of contracting skilled craftsmen to make scale military and civilian waterline ship models out of wood and wire. *Derick Head in his "Bassett-Lowke Waterline Ship Models", states that before and during World War One, there was such a demand for these hand-made waterline wooden ship models that the company had to contract with a "small metal casting company" to supply more waterline ship models to meet the demand. The name of the metal casting company referred to in Mr. Head's book was Brighten Manufacturing Company, LTD 32, Great St. Helens, London, England. This metal casting company was within walking distance from the prominent glass display windows of the Bassett-Lowke shop located on High Holborn St. in London. The metal ship models supplied by this small company were referred to in the Bassett-Lowke sales literature simply as "B.M.C.". The collaboration between Bassett-Lowke and B.M.C. produced the first metal ship models in a uniform scale to each other ever made. These B.M.C. models were the forerunners of all the scale metal recognition models made by companies in later years such as Tremo, Viking and Authenticast. The resulting model fleet in metal carried in the Bassett-Lowke catalog was of every class of ship in the British navy then in commission as of 1914. The models found in the collection range from the early 1882 Royal Sovereign class Pre-Dreadnoughts, some of which had been retained by the navy as bombardment ships, through the newest Revenge class Super-Dreadnoughts which had just come into service. The 1917 Bassett-Lowke catalogue makes the claim that "Practically every ship in the Navy has been modeled, including Super-Dreadnoughts, Battleships, Battle Cruisers, Armored Cruisers, Light Cruisers, Destroyers, Torpedo Boats, Submarines, Mine Layers, Mine Sweepers, Troopships, Transports, Armed Liners and all Auxiliary Craft". The models were formed in lead with the wire masts cast into the hulls in a scale of one inch equals 150 feet or 1/1800. They were painted and issued in numbered boxed sets, paper flags supplied with each set to be cut out and applied to the masts and sternposts. Every class of vessel was easily recognizable by the funnels, guns and masts. While rudimentary by later standards, the B.M.C. production of over 101 different castings was the first scale metal ship model fleet ever produced and established the precedent all subsequent scale metal recognition ship models. In addition to the ship models, B.M.C. produced a fort with movable guns, four lighthouses and a game featuring a large fold-out map of the Dardanelles channel showing forts and minefields. The game was supplied with fifteen metal ship models including two mine sweepers and two submarines.

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