Hugh Maxwell Lowe

Little is known about Lowe, who wrote four novels for Robert Hale and is also known to have contributed two stories to the John Creasey Mystery Magazine in 1957-58 and to the Daily Mail Boys Annual.

I believe Lowe was born in Hurlingham, London, on 25 January 1914, the son of Richard Parkes Lowe, a Weslyan minister, and his wife Lilian Mabel (nee Jordan). Lowe had two elder siblings, Marjorie Lilian Lowe (1909-1999) and Geoffrey Parkes Lowe (1911-1960) and a younger brother, Brian Cuthbert Lowe (1918-1997). Richard Parkes Lowe was living at Wesley House, Beech Grove, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, when he died on 4 May 1921, aged 48; his wife died in Reading in 1959, aged 79.

Lowe was living in the City of Westminster in 1935 at 130 Horseferry Road, SW1 (college? university?). He served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War and was made a temporary lieutenant on 27 September 1942.

He married Margery Maggie Jesse (1918-2004) in 1940 in Blandford, Dorse.

He died in Worthing, West Sussex, in 2002, aged 88.

PUBLICATIONS

Novels
Flamingo. London, Robert Hale, 1957.
The Uttermost Part. London, Robert Hale, 1959.
Hot Season. London, Robert Hale, 1976.
Scorn of Time. London, Robert Hale, 1978.

Short Stories
Mike's Magic Milk (Collins Boys' Annual, 1950s; reprinted in Thrilling Stories for Boys, n.d.)
The Flying Wing (Daily Mail Annual, 1956)
Sense of Occasion (The Creasey Mystery Magazine, Feb 1957)
Barty and the Gentleman (Daily Mail Boys Annual, 1957)
All's Fair (John Creasey Mystery Magazine, Dec 1958)
The Mosstroopers (Daily Mail Boys' Annual, 1959)
Hello, Darling, Again (Evening News, 11 Jan 1963)
I Knew it was Murder (Evening News, 13 Jan 1967)

(* The column topper features four illustrations by G. S. Ronalds for Lowe's Daily Mail Boys' Annual story "The Mosstroopers".)