Dorothy Levitt - Update

If the Radnorian blog has done nothing else, at least it has rescued the pioneer sporting motorist Dorothy Levitt from being characterised as some Downtonabbeyesque Edwardian toff.  Her real identity being far more interesting.

A recent blog comment rounds off the story by detailing Dorothy's death certificate:  Died 17th May 1922 at 50 Upper Baker Street, London aged 38 years  - She was nearer 40 - occupation spinster, independent means, daughter of Jacob Levi.  The cause of death as supplied by the London coroner after an inquest held on 20th May: found dead in bed, morphine poisoning while suffering from heart disease and an attack of measles. Misadventure.

So does this suggest that Dorothy was some 1920s Amy Winehouse?  She wouldn't be the only racer of that period to have problems with morphine, for example the aviator and Brooklands racer Gerald Le Champion was convicted in 1925 for possession of the drug.  Like others from that period Le Champion had become addicted as a result of medical intervention, in his case treatment for wounds sustained in the war.

A Forgotten Radnorian

"What about motor racing pioneer Rosemary Jones from Newbridge on Wye," the blog comment asked.  "She raced in the Monte Carlo in a Mini in the early 60s?"

The truth is I'd never heard of this Rosemary Jones and a check of some of the old entry lists for the Monte didn't help either.  But then people I spoke to agreed, "Rosemary Jones? Oh she was a daughter for Tom Jones from the garage in Newbridge.  Took part in the Monte Carlo rally. you know"

Well, I didn't know but then someone mentioned the fact that Rosemary was a dog-breeder and a possibility dawned, did she actually race as Elizabeth Jones (AKA Liz Jones) and did she drive a Mini-Cooper with the registration number LIZ 1?

Now this Liz Jones wasn't a run-of-the-mill club driver, along with her rivals Christabel Carlisle and Anita Taylor, she was one of the fastest saloon car racers in the country in the early Sixties, and I don't mean one of the fastest female racers either.

The you tube clip below is well worth watching for some elegant drifting from Jim Clark, but around the 40 second mark we get to see Liz burning up the track:

Mainly a track racer Liz certainly did enter the Monte Carlo rally.  In the 1964 event she took the rather unusual option of starting from behind the Iron Curtain in the Belorussian city of Minsk.

Elizabeth was one of the top half-dozen or so graduates from the Cooper Driving School entitled to an occasional outing in the school's FJ car during the 1960 season, she also competed in an Austin Healey 3000.  From 1962 through to 1964 Ms Jones - actually by this time she was Mrs Degerdon - drove Mini-Coopers, first for the Downton Engineering and then the Alexander Engineering teams.  Anyone who is interested can check out her record in the British Saloon Car Championship for those years here.  Ms Jones also competed in the RAC Rally; the 1963 Tour de France and the 1964 24 hour race at Spa.  A career highlight must have come in the 1963 Brands Hatch 6 Hour race where she finished 2nd in class, Her co-pilot was one Timo Mäkinen but Liz was actually the lead driver in that race.

So it seems that Rosemary Jones - Forgotten Radnorian - was also the Liz Jones who had quite a motor-racing career before dropping out of the sport in the mid-Sixties.  In later life as Mrs Degerdon she became a well-known but, if the forums are anything to go by, very controversial breeder of dogs - with talk of deportation from the United States amidst charges of animal cruelty.

Elizabeth Rosemary Degerdon, born 1930, died in 2010, she is buried in Newbridge churchyard.  Wyesiders who think they are related might wish to check out this site.

UPDATE:  For those who are interested in genealogical matters Ms Jones's father Thomas Irfon Jones was a son for Daniel Jones of Penrhiwmoch, Llanafan and his wife Flora Thomas - she was born in the gold mining town of Ballarat, Australia and in the 1891 census was working as a schoolteacher in Abergwesyn. Ms Jones's mother was Annie Alice Jones, daughter of George W. Jones, a Newbridge butcher and wool dealer and his wife Elizabeth Lloyd.

Who's That Girl?

There may not be much about Dame Annie in the press at the moment, but I did wonder about this 12" single cover.

It looks like a posed photo to me, for a start where are her goggles? Don't recognize the pilot or the voiturette. Maybe from an old film or a magazine, like this Vogue shoot from 1927 featuring actress Colette Salomon, who I believe may actually have competed in a race or two.

From Melbourne to Monte Carlo

The posh and not-so-posh totty who raced around Brooklands and other pre-war motor circuits really were a remarkable bunch. Adventurers, mistresses, devourers of family fortunes, serial divorcees, admirers of Hitler, consumers of toyboys and members of the aristocracy competed against the top male racers of the day and sometimes beat them. One who did just that was the Australian Joan Richmond who drove her Riley to the start of the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally ..... from Melbourne! Later that year, with co-driver Elsie Wisdom, she took on the men in the Brooklands 1000 Mile race and won.

It's a shame that the exploits of these ladies have escaped much attention. Miranda Seymour wrote a book about the French racer Helle-Nice which gained a lot of media attention, having been written by a famous author; and Fay Taylour merited a biography which mainly concentrated on her speedway career. Meanwhile the likes of the stylish Kay Petre and Gwenda Hawkes, two of just sixteen racers to have lapped Brooklands at more than 130mph, are forgotten. Indeed Barbara Cartland's pathetic faux-race at Brooklands is better remembered than their real achievements.

Anyway it seems that a short book about Joan Richmond is being published in Australia, see here.

Dorothy Levitt, Update

Dorothy Levitt was a secretary at the Napier Motor Company around 1903 when proprietor Selwyn Edge hit upon the idea of entering a woman in early Motoring events. Edge probably hoped that this would popularise the car with women and Dorothy soon proved herself an able and spirited driver. You can read about her on the excellent Speedqueens blog - here.

Soon Dorothy was an Edwardian celebrity but around the end of the decade she seems to have disappeared as quickly as she came into view. Despite being something of a feminist icon - check out my post on her only sporting foray into Radnorshire - and the subject of recent television shows, no-one really seemed bothered as to who she was or what became of her.

A couple of years ago I came up with the theory that Dorothy was actually a Jewish typist born Elizabeth Levi - my comment on this post sets out the reasons for the identification.

Now some genealogists with access to the probate records have confirmed the identification (see illustration above) - Elsie Ruby Lewis being shown through the BMD records to be Dorothy's or rather Elizabeth Levi's sister.

What became of Dorothy between 1913, when she had an apartment in Portman Mansions, and her death in 1922 remains a mystery.

Blog Watch

Aficionados of women in motorsport should check out this new blog.

As someone who finds modern day rallying and racing about as pointless as bungee jumping, I'm obviously more interested in the old-timers. The pre-war competitors seem much more interesting than their present day sisters. and quite often this is because of their adventures away from the track.

Perhaps this new blog misses out a bit by focusing on the records rather than the characters of those determined individuals - yes, for example, Joan Richmond did compete in the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally, but more interestingly she drove her little Riley to the start ..... overland from Australia.

Have women made any progress at all in motorsport over the last few decades? Back then photographers insisted on taking snaps of the leading racers powdering their noses, nowadays it's soft porn. One group who do have something of the spirit of their predecessors are the female Arab rally drivers from the Middle East featured on the blog. They're certainly challenging the status quo.

The Elusive Mrs Lace

Motor historians are far more interested in old cars than old drivers, after all old racing cars can be worth a pile of cash, while those who drove them, except for a few stars, are largely forgotten.

Still it comes as a surprise at how little is know of quite well-known names from the past. Take for example the pre-war racer Alfred Clucas Lace (1897-1978). Remembered mainly for the crash in which two spectators were killed at Brooklands in 1938. Lace was always known by his initials and historians seem quite unaware of his forenames or anything about him away from the track.

Then there was Lace's "wife" Mrs A. C. Lace - that's her pictured following a Bugatti in her Singer at a 1936 Brooklands meet. Now Mrs Lace can hardly be said to have had a distinguished racing career. She won the Ladies race at the 1938 London Grand Prix meeting at Crystal Palace and had two good finishes in the Monte Carlo rally, 27th with Elsie Wisdom in 1938 and 25th, driving alone from Riga in 1939.

So who exactly was Mrs Lace? With the help of the archives and some informed contributions to the Autosport Forum we learn that her maiden name was Phoebe Elizabeth Mylchreest, a grand-daughter of Joseph Mylchcreest, the "Diamond King," a Manxman who had made his fortune in South Africa. Phoebe was therefore a cousin of Tom Sheard the first Manx born winner of the Junior and Senior TT races, as well being the niece of the contralto Ada Mylchreest, an early favourite on the BBC.

Born in 1914, young Phoebe - she was seemingly called Betty - was barely 17 when she married a Mr McQueen in London in 1931. By 1934 she was competing on the track as Mrs A. C. Lace, although it's doubtful if the couple were ever married. By the late 1930s young Betty was the proprietress of the Hay Hill Club in Mayfair, subsequently having the misfortune to be made bankrupt just before war broke out. Around the same time Mr Lace, who optimistically described himself as a professional racing driver, was also bankrupted and soon left for Finland, where he was among the small group of British volunteers in that country's Winter War with the Soviet Union. Meanwhile in 1940 in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Britain, Betty Lace married the New Zealand fighter ace Brian Carbury. At the time she was using the surname Williams, although why is a matter for speculation. The marriage cannot have lasted long as Carbury remarried in 1948.

Given her profligate usage of surnames it's difficult to know what eventually became of Ms Mylchreest. She was seemingly alive in 1971, and still using the surname Lace which she had adopted in the days when she raced on the Brooklands track.

Lucy O'Reilly

Nazi Germany's sporting reversals have become the stuff of legend, Jesse Owens' slap in the face for Aryan supremacy at the Berlin Olympics of 1936 and Joe Louis' first round stoppage of Max Schmeling at Yankee Stadium in 1938.

In the field of motor sport such reverses were few and far between, as Mercedes and Auto Union took Grand Prix racing to a new level. Of course there was Nuvolari's 1935 victory in an Alfa Romeo at the German Grand Prix, of all places - but that could be seen as a victory for Adolf's pal Mussolini. No, the victory of a privately entered Delahaye over Caracciola's works Mercedes in the Pau Grand Prix of 1938 must have been a singular blow to Nazi pride, especially given the fact that the French car was piloted by a Jew called Dreyfus.

The Delahaye was run by the Ecurie Bleue, a racing team set up by French-American heiress Lucy O'Reilly. In one of those examples where misinformation gets repeated, you are likely to read that Lucy was the Dublin born daughter of an American millionaire, who, having met her husband Laury Schell while on the grand tour, moved to France where she became an amateur rallyist and racing driver of some note. Infact Lucy was born at Brunoy, near Paris on 26th October 1896, the daughter of a French mother and, yes, an American millionaire father. The truth is that when Lucy first visited the United States during the Great War, she spoke very little English.

Frustrated in her attempts to get French backing for her Delahaye project, Lucy moved her team to Monte Carlo and purchased Maseratis. In 1940 Lucy sent Ecurie Bleue on a daring voyage from war torn Europe to compete in the Indianapolis 500, sailing from Genoa on the ocean liner Conte di Savoia. Despite blowing up one of their cars in practice, drivers Dreyfus and Le Begue shared a creditable tenth place in the race, hampered at every turn by a complete failure to understand the American racing rulebook.

Accompanying Ecurie Bleue on this American adventure was Lucy's son Harry Schell, who continued to race for the team after the war, later becoming one of the leading Grand Prix drivers until his death at Silverstone in 1960. Lucy herself died in 1952.

Miss Penn-Hughes

In the 50 years up to and including the First World War South Wales was the Persian Gulf of its day. Great fortunes were made in and around the coal, steel and tinplate industries of the valleys and it was hardly surprising when some of the heirs to this wealth decided to spend it on the racing tracks of 1930s Europe.

Welsh born toffs such as Charley Martin, Tim Rose-Richards, the Eccles brothers, Dudley Folland, Owen Saunders Davies, Clifford Penn-Hughes, as well as plausible rogues such as Donald Marendaz and Philip Turner were amongst the leading racers at Brooklands and beyond.

The pre-war period was also a time when women drivers often competed on equal terms with the men, Kay Petre and Gwenda Stewart for example were amongst the sixteen drivers who lapped Brooklands at more than 130mph. So surely there must have been plenty of Welsh born lasses amongst the fast ladies of the period. Well actually no ...... one I did find was 21 year old Elizabeth Penn-Hughes (don't worry that's her brother pictured) who co-drove Clifford's Frazer-Nash in the 1930 Double Twelve Hour race at Brooklands. A hairy moment later in the year at Shelsey Walsh seems to have ended her short-lived career behind the wheel.

Were there any more Welsh born girl racers on the pre-war tracks?

The Duchess of Offa's Dyke

She may have been the Duchess of Offa's Dyke but the famous transsexual April Ashley was never a Grand Prix driver, despite what you occasionally read in the press. Here's an example from the Sunday Telegraph:

"ON APRIL Fool's Day, 1977, in a gesture intended as a snub at central authority, Richard Booth, bookseller of Hay-on-Wye, declared the town independent and had himself crowned King.

After a coronation at the foot of the castle steps, the King and his consort, the transsexual Grand Prix driver April Ashley (or "the Duchess of Offa's Dyke", as she likes to be called), went walkabout. After watching a fly-past by a biplane of the Hay air force and the launch of Hay-Ho, the first rowing-boat of the Hay navy, the coronation party adjourned to the pub where the King handed out Cabinet posts"

Heaven knows how this piece of misinformation started, possibly a confusion with another transsexual, Roberta Cowell, who certainly was a racing driver, if not a Grand Prix driver. By the way you can download Cowell's autobiography here.

Ms Evans de Lopez

A few years ago I seem to remember that S4C produced a drama documentary that suggested that Carrera Panamericana racer and Mexican film star Jacqueline Evans de Lopez was Welsh. Infact she was born in London, although there did remain the possibility that she belonged to the London Welsh community. Now some members of her family have been in touch with the blog to confirm that Miss Evans had no Welsh connections.

So Jacqueline is yet another "Welsh" racing driver who, together with Stuart Lewis-Evans and Jack Lewis, have been consigned to the ranks of the Englishry by this blog. Where will it end? Wales has had precious few four-wheel stars as it is!

High Flyers

Discovered some more information about forgotten Brooklands racer Irene Schwedler, I've posted about her before, in the Royal Aero Club records. It seems her full name was Ilse Charlotte Schwedler and she was born in Schwanheim, Germany on 26th January 1906.

The photo isn't Miss Schwedler by the way, it's another lady pilot from the 1930s called Marjorie Clair. A resident of Pinner in Middlesex, she gave her birthplace as Llandrindod Wells. Anyone know who she was? Oh and her house in Pinner was called Cefnllys.

Maud Manville, an Early Sporting Motorist from Wales.

Maud Elizabeth Wallis (1872-1909) was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, the daughter of a wealthy East India merchant. In 1894 she married Edward Manville, later Sir Edward and chairman of the Daimler Motor Company.

In 1905 Mrs Manville competed in the Brighton Speed Trials in one of her husband's cars, winning the scratch race for 35 horse power Daimlers from Scott Montague. Later that year Maud was on the Continent participating in the Six Day Herkomer race, an event in which she also appeared in 1906.

The Times report of the 1906 event noted that Mrs Manville "the only lady in the competition, was loudly cheered and presented with a bouquet of roses. The only accident", the Thunderer continued, "happened to a Berlin car, which ran over and killed a peasant near Melk." Lucky Maud, unlucky peasant.

Grand Prix Wives, 5

A long time since I added the names of any drivers wives from Motor Racing's dangerous years, so here are a few more. Dorine Dutoya was the wife of Willy Mairesse, and another great Belgian driver Oliver Gendebien was married to Marie-Claire Ango de Flers. Of course Helen McGregor was and still is married to Jackie Stewart, while Loti Lucas, who was married to Chris Irwin, still posts regularly on the TNF forum.

No-one seems very interested in these women other than on the usual babe front. Time moves on and I guess it is unlikely that their story is ever going to be told, a shame really as it would have made a change from the rivet counting that makes up so much of motor racing history. In many ways it was a tragic story with so many of these girls being widowed or divorced in more tranquil times after the stressful years of racing had ended.

Femmes Pilotes de Courses Auto

Any book which mentions Sterling Moss has to be treated with caution on the factual front and yes this book has more than its fair share of errors.

Rita Don, for example, was not Freddie Dixon's sister, her brother was infact Kaye Don, who the author includes in his list of female racers! At the same time how many books even mention Rita Don and where else are you likely to find a photograph of this 1930s Brooklands girl?

This is not a work of scholarship, perhaps there is too much about the Monte Carlo rally and the Paris-Saint-Raphael-Feminin, and not enough about Le Mans. What the book does have are the glorious photographs and they make the book well worth purchasing.

Pictured are eight Brooklands racers who competed in the Duchess of York race at Brooklands in 1932. The author names from left to right: Eileen Ellison, the Australian Joan Richmond, then three unidentified girls, then Victoria Worsley, Kay Petrie and Bill Wisdom. Anyone care to put a name to the three not named?

Dorothy Levitt

A couple of weeks back I posted about a 1904 motor sport event that crossed the border into Radnorshire, a time when the car was still a pretty rare sight in Mid Wales, there being just 33 cars registered in the county by January 1905. Anyway it seems that a BBC programme called the One Show recently had a piece about female competitor Dorothy Levitt, it appears that she is something of a mystery and they can't find anything in the public record. Here's a clue, her real name was Elizabeth Levi, daughter of Jacob Levi, a tea dealer and his wife Julia - Jacob later changed his name to John Levitt.

Takes the Biscuit

Perhaps the earliest motor sport event to take place in Radnorshire occurred on 4th September 1904, when the Automobile Club's 1000 mile small car trial briefly entered the county from Titley, travelling via Walton back to Kington. The week long event centred on Hereford attracted the leading motor manufacturers of the day, with three gold stars being awarded to the Wolseley, Siddeley and Swift Motor Companies.

A noteworthy competitor was the only female entrant, 24 year old Dorothy Levitt, driving for De Dion Bouton. Mechanical problems on the final day did not prevent the De Dion company from being awarded a silver medal. Miss Levitt was accompanied by her rather ill-tempered black Pomeranian dog throughout her fine drive, the topic of much cruel humour on the part of her fellow drivers. Dorothy had the last laugh however, for although as a woman she was NOT invited to any of the evening functions, she did ensure that one such event was interrupted for the presentation of a small gift from Miss Levitt to each of her fellow competitors ....... a bag of dog biscuits.

As well as De Dion Bouton, silver medals were also won by Humber and Allday & Onions. Bronze medals went to Speedwell, Brown Brothers, Star, Jarrott & Letts, Holland Park and Garner & Co.

London Gazette

The London Gazette is a good source for filling in the biographical gaps for some of the more obscure pre-war racers. The Welsh-born Brooklands driver Philip Turner is a good example, the Gazette records his change of surname in 1919, the collapse of his business in 1935 and his death in Brighton on 30th March 1949. Irene Schwedler, her real name was Ilse, was a well-known competitor before the war who seems to have disappeared without a trace as far as the motor-sport world is concerned. What happened to her? The Gazette shows a change of name to Sadler in 1947.

Another good thing about the Gazette, you can check which of your neighbours has ended up in the bankruptcy courts.

The Last Amazon

A new book has been published in France charting the life of Marie Marthe Camille Designe du Gast (1868-1942), the first woman driver to compete on equal terms with men, details here.

Camille's exploits are legendary: the parachute jump from a hot-air balloon in 1895; a 33rd place out of 122 starters in an underpowered 20hp Peugeot in the Berlin-Paris race of 1901 - she had been required to start last; the attempted duel fought on her behalf by the Prince de Sagan when the lawyer Barboux suggested that Camille was the model for a Gervex nude.

The ill-fated Paris-Madrid race of 1903 saw Madame du Gast among the leaders before she stopped to help the injured Englishman Stead, by the time the authorities had forced the abandonment of the race at Bordeaux she was still 45th out of 275 starters. Camille's reward, L'ACF banned women from competing in 1904!

Camille turned to the new sport of powerboat racing and was victorious in the ambitious Algiers-Toulon race of 1905. Not that she finished, her boat was closest to Toulon when she came to grief - the entire entry having been sunk by unseasonal storms.

A campaigner against bullfighting, her activities led in 1930 to the Minister of the Interior banning the "sport" in the department of Seine-et-Marne. Several thousand citizens marched through the town of Melun in protest, carrying an effigy of Mme. Du Gast accompanied by a cow and picadors riding asses. The effigy was burnt outside the prefecture to cries of Death! Now not many racing drivers can claim to have been burnt in effigy, not even Schumacher.

Brooklands 130-MPH Badge

Collectors of Brooklands memorabilia are getting excited about a forthcoming sale which will feature Kit Baker-Carr's 130-mph badge. Just 16 of these badges were awarded to drivers who lapped the Outer Track at over 130 miles per hour. The 16 were Kaye Don, John Cobb. George Eyston, Oliver Bertram, Dudley Froy, Whitney Straight, Charles Brackenbury, Chris Staniland, Freddy Dixon, Richard Marker, Lord Howe, Kit Baker-Carr, Jack Duller, George Harvey Noble, and two lady racers Kay Petre and Gwenda Hawkes.

Nowadays when a woman circulating mid-field in some obscure racing series is cited as evidence of feminist progress, it's interesting to note that more than 70 years ago their sisters were mixing it with the very fastest of the men.