Category:Nuways dollhouse furniture (Bassett-Lowke)

Nuways dollhouse furniture (Bassett-Lowke)

1931 - 1932

Logo for the Bassett-Lowke NUWAYS range of dollhouse furniture, showing a silhouette of three Charles Rennie Mackintosh-styled chairs and table against a slightly oriental-looking orange disc. The image above has been redrawn and "cleaned up" from the original version [image info]

1932: A Bassett-Lowke dollhouse? The accompanying text seems to relate to a B-L flat rather than a full house, but since B-L were promoting their furniture at the time in Hobbies Weekly, it's likely that they would have had a promotional dollhouse, in which case the HW identification is probably correct, and there's just a mistake in the text. B-L did also have a system of single rooms or flats, that seems not to have gone into production. [image info]

NUWAYS was an (apparently quite brief) range of Bassett-Lowke-branded 1:12-scale dollhouse furniture that had its own catalogues in 1931 and 1932, and was quite heavily promoted during this period, but outside the usual channels used by B-L to reach model engineering enthusiasts. We're not aware of there being a 1933 catalogue.

The museum has some of this range in its collection, and is creating a listing as part of its new 2016 "25th anniversary" dollhouse furniture display.

Theme

The 1931 NUWAYS range was an initial range that was intended to be expanded later, and seemed to be based on W.J. Bassett-Lowke's own tastes in modern furniture design, to the extent that the name of the range – Nuways – was named after WJ's own 1926 house New Ways, designed by Peter Behrens with 1916 furniture by Charles Rennie Mackintosh (which had originally been produced for 78 Derngate).

The extent to which this may have been a personal project of W.J. Bassett-Lowke is suggested by the Nuways logo. The very small version printed on the catalogue (apparently in two variations) is slightly crude, with the chair-detailing oddly asymmetrical, and while the person who drew the logo seems to have been happy with the first five "angular" letters, the "S" seemed to give them more trouble (although we've redrawn the logo and fixed some of the geometrical "kludges", we've deliberately kept some of the awkwardness of the original S").

Since the printed artwork seems a little sub-par in execution for a professional graphic designer, It's our current best guess that the logo might have been designed and drawn by WJ himself.

Introduction to the 1931 catalogue

THE furniture illustrated in this catalogue represents the first attempt to provide scale models for the doll's house for although we have brought the working models of ships and railways to perfection and so provided the boys with the best of toys we have hitherto sadly neglected the interests of girls.
The average doll's house is a crude affair and the furniture is not only often ugly, but ridiculously out of scale. Every girl will know the house where the sewing machine is as big as the sideboard. It has been difficult to decide what scale would be best to use – if too large a one, the doll's house would be unwieldy, if too small, the smaller articles such as knives and forks would be reduced to minute sizes and would soon be lost and would also be expensive to make. After much experiment and thought, we decided upon the scale of one inch to the foot. Furniture to this scale fits in admirably with the average rooms of the doll's house which measures eight or nine inches high and about 18 by 12 inches in floor area. This was, incidentally, the scale used for the Queen's Doll's House, which is the finest work of its kind in existence.
The articles illustrated in this catalogue are only the first of a series and provide for the furnishing of the dining and living rooms, the kitchen and the scullery. They represent however, over twelve months' work. All the articles are of continental manufacture, but it is hoped that the demand will be such as to enable us to undertake the manufacture of them at our Works in Northampton.
It has been our aim, not only to make scale model furniture, but to make sound and well designed furniture. A glance at the illustrations will show that we have succeeded in our aim.

— Foreword , Nuways: Scale Model Furniture, Bassett-Lowke Ltd., June 1931

Manufacture

As with many Bassett-Lowke product ranges, the Nuways range seems to have been manufactured by outside sources for the company, and B-L were pretty clear that most of the manufacturing for Nuways was foreign, but with production expected to be moved to the UK if the range took off.

Our example of the rather nice fireplace is stamped "foreign" on the back in purple ink, and we're currently pretty sure that it's a piece manufactured by Kibri of Germany.
The 1931 catalogue image of Vacuum Cleaner 8124 has its black dust bag emblazoned with what one might assume was the name of a vacuum cleaner manufacturer, but is actually ANFOE, Andreas Fortner's German toymaking company that was then bought by Stefan Bing and became the original German Trix company.

Bassett-Lowke had strong links with Stefan Bing, they collaborated with Bing on the Bing Table Railway system in the mid-1920s (with Henry Greenly), and the team then collaborated again on the Trix Twin Railway system in the mid-1930s. Stefan and his partners appear to have bought Andreas Fortner's company in 1929, so it's entirely logical that if WJ was looking to have some dollhouse furniture manufactured in the early 1930s, he'd have gone to ANFOE and his friend Stefan.

We'll continue to research further.

1931 listing

8119 – Fireside Companion

8124 – Vacuum Cleaner
8125 – O'Cedar Mop
8126 – Carpet Sweeper
8127 – Polishing Brush

8158 – Tea Wagon
8159 – Dinner Gong
8169 – Smoker's Set

8190 – Desk Set

8300/1 – Standard Lamp
8300/2 – Table Lamp
8300/3 – Hanging Lamp

8301/1 – Electric Radiator

8302 – Fireplace and Mantelpiece
8383 – Model Clock for Overmantel: as illustrated, price 6d

8350 – Kitchen Sink

8357 – Gas Cooker

8400/1 – Picture
8400/2 – Picture
8401/2 – Picture

8450/1 – Carpets
8450/2 – Hearth Rugs

8500/1 – Sideboard
8500/2 – Dining Table
8500/3 – Bureau Book Case
8500/4 – Book Table
8500/5 – Dining Chair
8500/6 – Elbow Chair

8501/1 – Kitchenette
8501/2 – Kitchenette Unit
8501/3 – Kitchenette Unit with drawers
8501/4 – Kitchen Side Table
8501/5 – Kitchen Chair
8501/6 – Kitchen Table

8510/1 – Flower Stand
8510/2 – Plant Stand
- Box of 10 model cacti plants in pots suitable for window sills, etc.

8520/1 – Armchair
8520/2 – Settee

8521 – Cushion

Table Glassware
Curtain Rod
Material for Curtains, Etc.

Acknowledgements

We're indebted to our friends at 78 Derngate, W.J. Bassett-Lowke's Charles Rennie Mackintosh-furnished house in Northampton, for sending us a colour photocopy of the 1931 "Nuways" catalogue from their files. This has been invaluable for research and identification of the B-L dollhouse furniture pieces in our collections.