Henry Lowenfeld

Childhood home in Chrzanów, Poland; now the Irena and Mieczysław Mazaraki Museum
Kops Brewery, Fulham
Apollo Theatre, Shaftesbury Avenue, London (2005)
Ocean Hotel, Sandown (2008)

Henry Lowenfeld (1859–1931) was a Polish-born British entrepreneur and theatrical impresario. He founded the Kops Brewery, the UK's first UK brewer of non-alcoholic beer, built London's Apollo Theatre, and a luxury hotel on the Isle of Wight.

Early life

He was born Henryk Loewenfeld in Warsaw in 1859, and emigrated to England in the early 1880s,[1] "with about $10 in his pocket". His childhood home at ul. Mickiewicza 13, Chrzanów, Poland is now the Irena and Mieczysław Mazaraki Museum, and his father Emanuel Loewenfeld owned the town.[2]

Career

In 1890, he built the Kops Brewery, the UK's first brewer of non-alcoholic beer on an eight-acre site in Townmead Road, Fulham, London.[1] The name of the brewery is thought to have been chosen of the word "hops". In December 2014, the renovated building received a blue plaque from the Hammersmith & Fulham Historic Buildings Group, "Kops brewed non-alcoholic ales and stouts on an eight-acre site and exported its products throughout the British Empire".[1]

In 1899, he founded the luxury Ocean Hotel, in Sandown, Isle of Wight.[3]

In 1901, the Apollo Theatre, designed for Lowenfeld by the architect Lewin Sharp on land he had bought, opened to the public.[4]

In a letter of 1906 to Siegfried Trebitsch, George Bernard Shaw states that Lowenfeld "made a lot of money in a lucky railway speculation", and used it to enter theatre management, mostly "musical comedy of the vulgarest kind", but that soon after building the Apollo Theatre, he "came to grief and vanished, much discredited". Shaw advised Trebitsch, "You had better not have anything to do with him in the way of business". Shaw also noted that he told Lowenfeld that he was "born to play Napoleon in my Man of Destiny ", and "I rather liked him, in fact".[5] Lowenfeld actually made his fortune from renovating theatres and not from railways. He used the money he made to buy an estate back in Poland.[6]

In 1917 the Kops Brewery building was redefined when it became a factory for creating margarine.[1]

Personal life

He married Alice Evans. One daughter, Helena Rosa Wright (1887–1982) was a doctor and a pioneer in birth control and family planning and their other daughter, Margaret Lowenfeld (1890–1973) was a pioneer in child psychology and psychotherapy. The two daughters were both sent to a Froebelian kindergarten and brought up in the Church of England, but the influence of Poland was important to their childhood. Both of them attended Cheltenham Ladies College. Lowenfeld's wife was known as a successful society hostess, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1902.[6]

He died in Paris in 1931.[1]

Legacy

Street sign in Chrzanów, Poland

Aleja Henryka in Chrzanów, Poland was named in his honour.[2]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 "Blue plaque for former Kops Brewery in Fulham". Your H&F. 11 December 2014. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  2. 1 2 "Monuments". chrzanow.pl. Retrieved 14 September 2015.
  3. ↑ The World's Paper Trade Review. Stonhill & Gillis. 1900. p. 43. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  4. ↑ Mike Kilburn (2002). London's Theatres. New Holland Publishers. p. 25. ISBN 978-1-84330-069-4. Retrieved 20 August 2015.
  5. ↑ Bernard Shaw; Siegfried Trebitsch (1 January 1986). Bernard Shaw's Letters to Siegfried Trebitsch. Stanford University Press. pp. 108–109. ISBN 978-0-8047-1257-6. Retrieved 27 August 2015.
  6. 1 2 Cathy Urwin, 'Lowenfeld, Margaret Frances Jane (1890–1973)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 4 Sept 2015
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