"Madame Laumaille"

Madame Laumaille as a passenger at Spa in 1896

"Madame Laumaille", whose name may have been Marie Laumaille, was one of the earliest recorded woman racing drivers. 

She was French and married to Albert Laumaille, a racing cyclist, long-distance rider and early exponent of motor racing. Marie also had a background in cycling and motor touring, alongside her husband. From the 1880s onwards, they covered long distances together, with Albert on his bicycle and Marie on a pedal tricycle.

It is unclear when Marie first tried a motor vehicle for herself, but there are certainly pictures of her riding alongside Albert in a decorated car for a "battle of the flowers" parade at their home town of Nice in 1896. Before this, even, they used a Peugeot "quadricycle" for a tour of France in 1893, although it is not stated whether both drove.

She was 27th overall in the 1898 Marseille-Nice trial, a two-day road race. Her vehicle was a De Dion motorised tricycle. The publication "La Vie au Grand Air" told of how she had already ridden 15,000km on bicycles and tricycles. The first leg of the race ran between Marseille and Hyeres and she was second in class. By the end of the race the following day at Nice, she was fourth in the motorcycle class. Reports at the time suggest that she had been tipped to win, had her tricycle's chain not broken. Albert was sixth. 

Shortly after, she is reported as having entered a Nice Puget-Theniers-Entrevaux-Paget race, but it ended for her when she came off her tricycle trying to avoid a child who had run in front of her. She suffered cuts to her face and, according to some sources, a broken jaw, and had to be taken to hospital. Despite this, she was still believed to be competing actively afterwards, with La semaine nicoise newspaper mentioning a proposed match race with another woman in a December issue that year. 

Although not a competitive run, Marie and Albert's arrival in Paris after a trip from Nice in 1899 was reported in the newspapers. In the summer, they drove from Nice to Aix-le Bains together with a friend named Fernandez, before setting off on a longer tour.

Albert died in 1901, bringing an end to their joint adventures. Madame Laumaille's life after that is unknown.