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Bastendorff, Peter & Co.; Bastendorff, Severin; Bastendorff, Sidney (1881-1903)

Bastendorff, Peter & Co.; Bastendorff, Severin; Bastendorff, Sidney

4 Euston Square & 23 Harrington Street, Hampstead Road, London; cabinet maker, bamboo furniture manufacturer (fl.1881-1903)

Severin Bastendorff was born 1847 in Luxembourg. He was listed in the 1881 census as a cabinet maker employing ten men and one boy, He lived with two of his sons, Peter (b.1875) and Severin junior, called Sidney, (b.1876-7) at 4 Euston Square. The family received their naturalisation in 1878. 

The Furniture Gazette (10 May 1884) reported that S. Bastendorff of Euston Square, displayed bamboo & cane articles at the 1884 Furniture Trades Exhibition in Agricultural Hall, London. Severin was possibly the younger brother of Joseph (b.1841) and Jean J. Bastendorff (b.1842, Luxembourg), recorded in the 1891 census as a fancy bamboo maker living at 26 Little Clarendon Street, St Pancras.  See: https://bifmo.history.ac.uk/entry/bastendorff-joseph-co-bastendorff-charles-sevring-1891-1901. Both of Severin’s sons also entered the trade. 

The firm of Peter Bastendorff & Co., of 4 Euston Square & 23 Harrington Street, Hampstead Road, had a distinctive style of Chinese rather than Japanese influence. They recommended their ‘most useful assortment of bamboo goods’ for use in ‘bungalows, boathouses, rustic and garden houses, smoking room fittings etc’.  A bamboo portico, chairs, table and corner settee were illustrated in contemporary publications dated 1886-1893 (illus. Walkling (1979), pp. 55 & 56). 

Sidney Bastendorff was recorded as a bamboo furniture manufacturer in 1903 at Rheidol Mews, Rheidol Terrace, Islington: https://bifmo.history.ac.uk/entry/bastendorff-sidney-1903.  This was the same address as given for another bamboo furniture maker in 1906, Matthew Bass: https://bifmo.history.ac.uk/entry/bass-matthew-1906

Source: Walkling, Antique Bamboo Furniture (1979).