British advertising executive and designer (1901–1983)
John Robert Marcus BrumwellCBEFRSA (20 April 1901 – January 1983) was a British advertising pioneer, designer, businessman, political activist, and art collector.[1]
Advertising
Marcus joined H. Stuart Menzies's small advertising agency, Stuart's, in 1924, and by 1926 was its company secretary.[1] Brumwell was later partner, specialising in liaising with contemporary artists, bringing in Edward Bawden, Edward McKnight Kauffer, Ben Nicholson, Barbara Hepworth, and others to work on projects, and helping the agency grow greatly. Brumwell took over as the managing director of Stuart's when Menzies retired in 1938.
Alongside art and design, Brumwell pushed for good communication between scientists, artists, and political movements.[6] In 1944 he brought together as editor a collection of essays by famous thinkers of the day, This Changing World, which included input from Read, Waddington and others.[7]
Brumwell established in the early 1950s through informal dinner parties a "group of VIP scientists",[8] where his friends in science like Waddington, Blackett, and Bernal met together with elites in other fields like academics like Charles Frederick Carter and C. P. Snow, and Harold Wilson and Richard Crossman in politics.[9][10] Brumwell's cause notably escalated in the late 1950s, where these discussions led to a short document, A Labour Government and Science, published in 1959, which driven by Wilson became the Labour Party's basic policy science in the run up to the general election in 1964, most famously in the "white heat of technology" speech in September 1963.[11][12]
Arising from this work, Brumwell helped found the related Science of Science Foundation in 1964 (later the Science Policy Foundation and then the International Science Policy Foundation), and served on its Advisory Council until his death. The SSF, led by Maurice Goldsmith, pushed for domestic and later international governmental interest in science and technology policy and its practical implementation, including publishing the Science and Public Policy journal.[13][14]
Art
Brumwell personally invested heavily in art, commissioning his home in Cornwall which in 1969 was the first private house to win a RIBA award,[3] and collecting included significant numbers of works by friends such as Ben Nicholson, Henry Moore, Alexander Calder, Bernard Leach, and notably Barbara Hepworth, including Three Forms which he gave to the Tate in 1964.[1][3][15]
Personal life, honours and awards, and death
Brumwell and his wife Irene Strachan had a daughter, Su Brumwell (later Su Rogers, now Su Miller), who similarly went into architecture, and co-founded Team 4.[3]
^ abcdeHolland, James (May 1983). "OBITUARY: Marcus Brumwell". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 131 (5322): 352. ISSN0035-9114. JSTOR41373589.
^Forgan, Sophie (1 June 1998). "Festivals of science and the two cultures: science, design and display in the Festival of Britain, 1951". The British Journal for the History of Science. 31 (2): 217–240. doi:10.1017/S0007087498003264. ISSN1474-001X. S2CID144688774.
^Garfield, Eugene (1 February 1991). "Contribution of the International Science Policy Foundation". Science and Public Policy. 18 (1): 6. doi:10.1093/spp/18.1.6. ISSN0302-3427.