Mrs Gordon-Simpson

What was Mrs Gordon-Simpson's first name, a question which has been asked on a couple of motor sport forums including TNF and which has seemingly baffled a few experts. Read the 30s reports of the Brooklands races and it's usually Mrs Gordon-Simpson or at best Mrs E. Gordon-Simpson. No forename in Sammy Davis's "Atlanta" nor in John Bullock's rather similar "Fast Women". There's a great picture of the lady in John Tennant's "Motor Racing, the Golden Age", where she look's the kind of woman who any sensible daughter would hesitate to introduce to her boyfriend. No first name there either of course.

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Well, after a bit of searching through the Times archive and the GRO indexes, I found that Mrs Gordon-Simpson had divorced her first husband and married Hugh Conway, the well known Bugatti expert and future director of Rolls Royce in 1937. Her maiden surname was Brewer and she was born in Garstang, Lancashire on 30th July 1901. She died in 1980.

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And that elusive first name? It was Eveline, Eva for short, Eva Gordon-Simpson.