The company closed in 1965, with its rights to brand acquired by Corgi Toys. When Corgi was taken over by Hornby in 2008, it secured rights to the Bassett-Lowke brand, which is still commercialising.
Overview
Bassett-Lowke was a sales organization, contracting manufacturers such as Twining Models and Winteringham Ltd, also of Northampton. Until World War I, the company also carried models made by Bing and Märklin.
Today
The name Bassett-Lowke is mostly associated with model trains but the company also had a long history of contracting skilled craftsmen to make 100 ft. to 1 inch or 1/1200 scale military and civilian waterline ship models out of wood and wire. These detailed hand crafted waterline ship models are so highly desired by ship model collectors that they often command higher prices than the Bassett-Lowke model trains. Something that is not well known is that Bassett-Lowke also sold less detailed waterline models cast in white metal.
Roland Fuller on page 49 of his book, "The Bassett-Lowke Story", states that in the London Bassett-Lowke store on High Holborn St. there was such a demand for the hand-made waterline 100 ft. to 1 inch scale wooden ship models that the company had to make available to its customers a less expensive line of waterline ship models, cast in white metal, to meet the demand. The name of the casting company supplying these inexpensive white metal ship models for Bassett-Lowke customers was Brighton Manufacturing Company, a company using the initials B.M.C. to identify their products. The B.M.C. Company was located at 32 Great St Helens, London, England. This metal casting company was a neighbor to Bassett-Lowke, its store being within walking distance from the Bassett-Lowke shop located on High Holborn St.
Roland Fuller describes in extensive detail the range of inexpensive metal ships offered to Bassett-Lowke customers. He states the metal ship models could be purchased individually or could be purchased in numbered boxed sets.
Illustrations of these same metal waterline ship models appear in a book by Derek Head. On pages 11 and 15 In his book "Bassett-Lowke Waterline Ship Models", Mr. Head provides excerpts of a few pages of the Bassett-Lowke war time catalog. These excerpted catalog pages contain illustrations of metal ship models sold in numbered boxed sets matching the exact description of the numbered boxed sets of metal ship models described in the Roland Fuller book. The presence of these metal ship models in the Bassett-Lowke war time model ship catalog can be explained by the following:
Derek Head describes on page 11 of his book that at beginning of World War One, government censors prohibited Bassett-Lowke from selling or advertising their line of detailed 100 ft. to 1 inch or 1/1200 scale models of the Royal Navy. The concern of the censors was that the accuracy of these detailed models could give vital information to the enemy.
In order to have some representation of the Royal Navy for their war time catalog, Bassett-Lowke replaced their prohibited Royal Navy models by purchasing the less detailed metal ship models of the Royal Navy made by the neighboring company, B.M.C. These metal B.M.C. models while detailed, had their origins as game models and were therefore less accurate depictions of Royal Navy Warships. This lack of sharp detail was apparently found acceptable to the government censors and therefore they were allowed to appear in the catalog.
The resulting model fleet in metal carried in the Bassett-Lowke war time catalogue 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 1889 Royal Sovereign class Pre-Dreadnoughts, some of which had been retained by the navy as bombardment ships, through to eventually the newest Revenge class Super-Dreadnoughts which had just come into service. The 1917 Bassett-Lowke catalogue proudly boasts that "Practically every ship in the Navy has been modelled, including Super-Dreadnoughts, Battleships, Battle Cruisers, Armoured 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 to 150 feet or 1/1800. They were painted and issued in numbered boxed sets by Bassett-Lowke, the boxes bearing the label “H.M.S. Irresistible”. Paper flags were 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 for all subsequent scale metal waterline 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
This collaboration between Bassett-Lowke and B.M.C. was a great benefit to both companies. It allowed Bassett-Lowke to have a representation of the Royal Navy in their war time catalogue that was acceptable to the government censors and at the same time it gave the small metal casting company of B.M.C. a broader venue for the sales of their metal ship models. In the time period of the First World War, these metal B.M.C. ship models were the only examples of waterline warship models of the Royal Navy sold by Bassett-Lowke and are therefore deserving of a more detailed review than has normally been accorded to them.
The B.M.C. waterline ship models had been cast by an independent company which had been selling their metal waterline ship models for over 10 years through advertisement and through shops specializing in military miniatures. Early in the century this small company had begun supplying lead waterline game models to the publishers of the Fred T. Janes Naval War Game, supplementing the pressed cork and wire waterline game models already being supplied to the game by others. The accomplishment of B.M.C. is that this garage sized company had, by 1903 begun the creation of the first commercially available metal waterline ship models made in a uniform scale to each other. B.M.C. SHIP MODELS AVAILABLE TODAY
The B.M.C. ship models often appear for sale on internet auctions and at toy shows. Many times at these sales the B.M.C. models are found mixed with copies made by two later companies. The B.M.C. models can be distinguished from the copies since only the B.M.C. models have full-length wire masts cast into the hulls. The first type of copies are 31 models made by "Minifigs" These are cast in solid lead, have no wire masts and have large numbers inscribed on the bottom. The second type of copies comprise a group of four models made by Crescent which are cast in pot metal. They have numbers near the starboard stern numbering B.1, B.2, B.3, or B.4. Curiously, these pot-metal models retain the same numbering system that is cast into the hulls of the four B.M.C models from which they were derived. These Crescent copies mimic the B.M.C. castings of the B.I Duncan, B.II Swiftsure, B.III King Edward VII, and the B.IV Lord Nelson. It is unknown when Bassett-Lowke ceased carrying the B.M.C metal ship models, however Derek Head in his book on page 12, states that metal ship models continued to be carried until the 1920’s.
In the present day, the larger highly accurate wood and wire ship models in the scale of one inch to 1200 inches or 1:1200, is are what command the high prices at auction. These hand crafted ship models continued to be sold commercially until the mid1960's and had also been purchased by the military for recognition and war gaming purpose. Unlike the B.M.C. metal models, which were carried only briefly by Bassett-Lowke in the early years and are a mystery to most collectors, the larger highly finished 100 to 1 inch or 1/1200 scale wooden ship models are greatly sought after by collectors and command high prices at auctions. The Derek Head book, "Bassett-Lowke Waterline Ship Models" will reward ship model collectors with an extensive and colorful survey of both the metal B.M.C. ships and the expensive, detailed, hand-crafted ship models, many from his own collection.
The first 15-inch steam locomotive, test run on the Eaton Hall Railway in 1905, was Little Giant. Unlike other engines on the line, it was a replica of main-line locos, built for a public miniature railway at Blackpool. It was a quarter-scale 4-4-2 "Atlantic" tender engine, though not an exact copy of any particular prototype. That engine still exists in private ownership.
In 1914, Bassett-Lowke produced the second "Pacific" 4-6-2 of any size built in Britain (the first was GWR 111 The Great Bear). That was John Anthony, built for a miniature railway at Staughton Manor, Cambridgeshire. It was never delivered, but after storage at Eaton Hall during World War I, was sold to the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway and renamed Colossus. It was scrapped in 1927. Ravenglass and Eskdale had purchased another Bassett-Lowke Atlantic, the Sans Pareil.
In the 1920s, Bassett-Lowke introduced 00 gauge products. The company provided custom-built railways, and one such gauge 1 layout survives in modified format at Bekonscot Model Village in England.
Bassett-Lowke's decline, starting in the late 1950s, can be blamed on at least two factors: people would browse the firm's free catalogue and buy similar or nearly identical items elsewhere at lower price; and the interest in technical toys declined in the late 1950s and even more in the 1960s. Bassett-Lowke's fall was mirrored by its U.S. counterparts, the A. C. Gilbert Company and Lionel Corporation. In 1964, the company ceased retail sales and sold its shops, including one at High Holborn in London, to Beatties. Bassett-Lowke went out of business in 1965.
In 1966, the company was acquired by Messrs Riley and Derry. Around 1969, Ivan Rutherford Scott, Allen L. Levy and Roland H. Fuller apparently made an effort to revive the model railway business.[2] In the late 1980s, Nigel Turner, a Northampton businessman, bought the business and based it next to his business, Turner's Musical Merry-Go-Round, near Wootton, Northamptonshire. In 1993, the name was revived with short-run white-metal models. These included a Burrell-type traction engine, Clayton undertype steam wagon, Burrell-type steam roller, and a London B-type bus. The name was acquired in 1996 by Corgi, which linked it with live steam 0-gauge locomotives.
Key competitors to Bassett-Lowke were Hornby and Exley. Hornby acquired Corgi in 2008 and originally continued to make the 0 gauge models before later discontinuing them. The brand name was revived by them in 2020 for a range of 00 scalesteampunk models based on existing Hornby toolings.
Narrow Gauge Railways Ltd
In 1912 W. J. Bassett-Lowke, Robert Proctor-Mitchell and John Wills set up Narrow Gauge Railways Ltd (NGR) to promote and run 15-inch (380mm) railways. An earlier company, Miniature Railways of Great Britain Ltd, went into voluntary liquidation in 1912. NGR's first railway opened in 1912 at Luna Park in the Parc des Eaux Vives, Geneva, Switzerland. In Britain, the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway was taken over, converted to 15-inch (380mm) gauge and re-opened in 1915. The Fairbourne Railway in Wales followed in 1916.
Hornby
Tinplate 0 gauge clockwork locomotive Duke of York, 2023
The Bassett-Lowke name was purchased by Corgi after the company dissolved in 1965, who used it for Corgi Classics. Corgi (and the Bassett-Lowke brand) was bought by Hornby in 2008 who used it for traditional sheet metal railway models.[citation needed] In 2020 Bassett-Lowke branding was used by Hornby to launch a range of steampunk inspired railway models.[citation needed] In 2021 brick-based construction models with steampunk themes were released under the Bassett-Lowke branding as the 'brickpunk' range aimed at both children and adults.[3]
Locomotives
Bassett-Lowke locomotives were often renamed when moved to different railways, sometimes creating uncertainty about whether a locomotive is new or an old one with a new name. The list (probably incomplete) is not definitive. Most of Bassett-Lowke's locomotives were designed by Henry Greenly who was a contributor to Model Engineer magazine.[4]
King Edward for the 1910 International and Universal Exhibition in Brussels, Belgium
King Albert for the 1910 International and Universal Exhibition in Brussels, Belgium
King Leopold for the 1910 International and Universal Exhibition in Brussels, Belgium
Hungaria (No. 19) built in 1912 originally for Luna Park Geneva, Switzerland, then taken to Vidámpark (Amusement Park), Budapest, Hungary in 1914. Boiler changed in 1952, withdrawn in 1974, taken to a scrapyard but saved by the Transport Museum. Currently displayed in Zánkafürdő Railway Station, Hungary.
Railway modelling or model railroading is a hobby in which rail transport systems are modelled at a reduced scale.
The Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway is a 15 in minimum gauge heritage railway in Cumbria, England. The 7-mile (11.3 km) line runs from Ravenglass to Dalegarth Station near Boot in the valley of Eskdale, in the Lake District. At Ravenglass the line ends at Ravenglass railway station on the Cumbrian Coast Line.
A scale model is a physical model which is geometrically similar to an object. Scale models are generally smaller than large prototypes such as vehicles, buildings, or people; but may be larger than small prototypes such as anatomical structures or subatomic particles. Models built to the same scale as the prototype are called mockups.
O scale is a scale commonly used for toy trains and rail transport modelling. Introduced by German toy manufacturer Märklin around 1900, by the 1930s three-rail alternating current O gauge was the most common model railroad scale in the United States and remained so until the early 1960s. In Europe, its popularity declined before World War II due to the introduction of smaller scales.
Hornby Railways is a British-owned model railways manufacturing company. Its roots date back to 1901 in Liverpool, when founder Frank Hornby received a patent for his Meccano construction toy. The first clockwork train was produced in 1920. In 1938, Hornby launched its first OO gauge train. In 1964, Hornby and Meccano were bought by their competitor, Tri-ang, and sold when Tri-ang went into receivership. Hornby Railways became independent again in the 1980s, and became listed on the London Stock Exchange, but due to financial troubles reported in June 2017, became majority owned by British turnaround specialist Phoenix Asset Management.
Bing or Gebrüder Bing was a German toy company founded in 1863 in Nuremberg, Germany by two brothers, Ignaz Bing and Adolf Bing, initially producing metal kitchen utensils, but best remembered for its extensive lines of model trains and live steam engines.
Ernest W. Twining was a modelmaker, artist, and engineer.
The Fairbourne Railway is a 12+1⁄4 in gauge miniature railway running for 2 miles (3.2 km) from the village of Fairbourne on the Mid-Wales coast, alongside the beach to the end of a peninsula at Barmouth Ferry railway station, where there is a connection with the Barmouth Ferry across the Mawddach estuary to the seaside resort of Barmouth.
Live steam is steam under pressure, obtained by heating water in a boiler. The steam may be used to operate stationary or moving equipment.
The Great Northern Railway (GNR) No. 1 class Stirling Single is a class of steam locomotive designed for express passenger work. Designed by Patrick Stirling, they are characterised by a single pair of large driving wheels which led to the nickname "eight-footer". Originally the locomotive was designed to haul up to 26 passenger carriages at an average speed of 47 miles per hour (76 km/h). They could reach speeds of up to 85 mph.
Blakesley Hall was a 13th-century manor house situated near the village of Blakesley in Northamptonshire, England.
TMA Engineering Ltd, is an engineering business based in Erdington, West Midlands, who supply services around power presses, but are best known for their sideline in building and overhauling miniature steam locomotives.
The 15 in gauge, single track Lakeside Miniature Railway runs along the seaward side of the Marine Lake in Southport, England.
Dalegarth railway station is the easterly terminus of the 15-inch gauge Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria, England. It has a café and shop for passengers, along with a run-round loop, turntable and siding for trains. It is located next to the Whillan Beck, a tributary of the River Esk flowing from the isolated Burnmoor Tarn.
Henry Greenly (1876–1947) was amongst the foremost miniature railway engineers of the 20th century, remembered as a master of engineering design.
The Radwell Manor Railway was a 10+1⁄4 in gauge miniature railway situated in the village of Radwell, near Felmersham, in North Bedfordshire, England. It was built by Mr. H. W. Franklin, who was closely associated with the Bassett-Lowke company of Northampton, and whose products were often tested on its 0.75 mi (1.2 km) of track. The privately run railway opened in 1920, and ceased operating with the onset of the Second World War, around 1939. However, much of the railway remained intact until at least the early 1960s because it was seen in approximately 1960-1962 by a young railway enthusiast who was exploring the area.
The Shuzenji Romney Railway is a 1.2 km, 15 in gauge ridable miniature railway located in Niji-no-Sato in Izu, Shizuoka, on the Izu Peninsula in Japan. It is based on the English Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway on the English Channel coast in Kent, which opened in 1927. The railway operates using a mixture of steam and diesel locomotives and enclosed saloon carriages. Its primary two steam engines were built by the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway in Cumbria, England, and are based on that line's 1976 Northern Rock 2-6-2 steam locomotive. Its No. 2 locomotive Ernest W. Twining was acquired from the Fairbourne Railway in Wales when that line converted to 12+1⁄4 in gauge. There is also a small 15-inch gauge railway museum.
This article gives details of the locomotives used on the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway, a 15 in narrow gauge preserved railway line running for 7 miles (11 km) from Ravenglass on the Cumbrian coast to Dalegarth near the village of Boot, in Eskdale.
The Miniature Railway Company on Broadway in Manhattan, New York, operated their ridable miniature railways at four World Expositions around 1900 and delivered them to many parks throughout the world.
↑ They wrote the introduction to a limited-edition album called "Bassett-Lowke: A Commemorative Edition" (1969). The volume commemorated the Flying Scotsman's tour of the US that year, a tour in which Bassett-Lowke participated. In the introduction the authors stated that the industrial model-making business and the railway model-making had been split, with the former continuing as Bassett-Lowke Limited in Northampton, and the latter as Bassett-Lowke (Rlys) Limited at 59 Cadogan Street, London, sharing space with Steam Age. The book showed the products they intend to bring to market.
Derick Head "Bassett-Lowke Waterline Ship Models", New Cavendish Books; ISBN1872727727
Fuller, Roland; Levy Allen "The Bassett-Lowke Story", New Cavendish, ISBN0-904568-34-2 / 9780904568349
Mosley, D. and van Zeller, P. (1986) Fifteen inch gauge railways: their history, equipment and operation, Newton Abbot: David & Charles, ISBN0-7153-8694-8
Newman, Bernard (17 March 1956). "Churchill's Forgotten Monster". Picture Post. Hulton. 70 (11): 21–23, 52.
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