Geraldine Hedges

Geraldine Hedges raced in and around Brooklands in the 1930s, normally as "Miss G Hedges".

She first appears in the entry lists in the JCC’s High Speed Trial, in 1932, driving a Riley, but she was most associated with Talbot cars, one of which she owned jointly with Patricia McOstrich. Her motor racing career did not begin until she was in her early forties. A report on her garage business from 1931 states that she entered a ladies' race at Brooklands that year, although the result is not forthcoming.

In 1932, she scored her first Brooklands win, in a Talbot 90, the Sports Long Handicap at the Inter-Club Meeting. This would appear to be the shared car, as Patricia McOstrich drove it in the Five Lap Handicap at the same meeting. That summer, they had a similar arrangement at the Guys Gala meeting; Grace drove in the Duchess of York's Race for Lady Drivers, finishing eighth, while Patricia took on the Women's Automobile and Sports Association's all-female handicap. 

The Hedges/McOstrich/Talbot partnership seems to end after 1933, although Geraldine and Patricia remained close and continued to drive the same cars. They also ran a garage in London together, from at least 1931. Newspapers of the time make pointed references to the pair being "good friends", which may have been a euphemism for "romantic partners". They did live together in London from at least 1927. They sometimes competed with both in the car, like when they entered the Shelsley Walsh Hillclimb in June 1932. Their "took a corner too fast and crashed their car" but were unhurt.

They were joined in the Talbot by Lady Iris Capell for the 1932 RAC Rally, which ran for 1000 miles and started from Torquay. Ther are pictures of two dogs called Tippy and Dingo who accompanied the three drivers, but their finishing position is not forthcoming. They were part of a three-car WASA team, with Margaret Allan's Lagonda and Paddie Naismith in a Standard.

The pair's next car was a Singer, which Geraldine first drove in a speed trial at the 1935 JCC Members' Day, held at Brooklands. Although Patricia also competed in it from 1934 , they didn't keep the car for very long and it was traded in for a Frazer Nash-BMW for the 1936 season. As part of a three-car team she led herself, Geraldine was eighth in that year's Light Car Club Relay, also at Brooklands. The other two cars were driven by Kay Petre and Lady Dorothy Makins. The following month, she was back at Brooklands for the JCC Members' Day.

Patricia McOstrich carried on racing the Frazer Nash until the outbreak of World War II, but Geraldine's name disappears from the entry lists after 1936. The 1939 England and Wales Register has them living separately by then, Geraldine with the widowed Dorothy Makins.

She had been an ambulance driver during WWI and served with the Scottish Women's Hospital under Elsie Inglis, rising to the rank of Chief Transport Officer. She worked in London, Russia, Romania and finally Serbia, where she contracted malaria and was invalided home in 1918. 

Later, she worked as a "motor consultant", advising her customers on car purchases, modifications and repairs. She opened her London garage in 1935 by holding a well-publicised party in it, with guests "resting their cocktail glasses on car wings" and the space especially decorated. Her guests included Kay Petre, Brooklands scrutineer Hugh McConnell and Baron Wolfgang Putlitz, a British-based German diplomat who spied on behalf of the British government.

After 1936, she appears to retire from public life. She died in 1968.

(Image copyright The Sketch)

Iris Capell

Lady Iris Capell rallied and trialled cars in the British Isles in the early 1930s. 

Born in 1895, she was the first daughter of George Capell, the fifth Earl of Essex. She grew up in a privileged environment and was presented as a debutante in 1913. As a teenager, she was known for her love of roller-skating and golf. She learned to drive shortly before or during the First World War, when she served as a driver for the National Food Fund. Before that, she had worked as a nurse at Lady Murray's hospital in France.

Before taking to motor competition, Lady Iris saw cars as a business opportunity. At the age of 25, she opened her own garage in London, which hired out cars. She used the name "Miss K Adams" professionally and drove for the firm occasionally. The company motto, according to the Daily Record, as "Punctuality and Reliability". In 1922, she enrolled as an undergraduate at the University of Oxford, studying Classics. For a while, she concentrated on study and work.

It may have been a string of increasingly expensive motoring convictions in 1928 that pushed her towards rallies as an outlet for her enthusiasm. In 1929, she entered the first-ever overnight trial for women drivers only, running between London and Exeter. Iris drove an Alvis and won a first-class award for her non-stop performance.

The London-Exeter event was the first organised by the Women's Automobile and Sports Association (WASA), of which she was a leading member. The club was formed in 1927 and a committee was first elected in 1929, with Iris as a vice-president. She was a regular in their trials, competing in the London-Land's End event again in 1930. Its big trial in 1931 was from London to Westward Ho! in Devon, and Iris once again took part.

The 1932 RAC Rally was the first major rally she entered. Starting from London, she drove a Talbot, co-driven by Patricia McOstrich and Geraldine Hedges and their dogs. "They are as enthusiastic about motoring as I am," Iris told the Western Morning News. The timed sections made up 1000 miles and ran between London, Edinburgh and Torquay, where the event ended with a Concours d'Elegance. She was part of a three car WASA team with Margaret Allan in a Lagonda and Paddie Naismith in her Standard. Iris and her companions finished on time and she described the rally as "a pleasant journey."

Later in the year, she was on organisational duty at Brooklands for WASA, on the committee for the Guys Gala hospital benefit. She did not race, although WASA did hold their own handicap. Her duties included hosting the Duke and Duchess of York (later George VI and the Queen Mother) in the Royal Enclosure.

She is listed as a finisher in the 1933 Ulster Rally, again starting from London and travelling to Ireland by ferry from Liverpool. Her car was another Talbot, which she bought new in late 1932 and had painted beige. 

As well as stage rallies, she was a regular entrant in trials in the 1930s, particularly those organised by the Women's Automobile and Sports Association (WASA), of which she was a leading member. She competed in several of their Cotswold-based trials, as well as donating a trophy to the club. In 1934, she was one of the 67 women out on the Aston Clinton hillclimb for the club's first high-speed trial, which followed a regularity test. The hillclimb was 350 yards long, from a standing start. During the regularity section, Iris's car got stuck in mud and had to be pulled out by a team of horses.

She did compete at Brooklands at least once, although not in a head-to-head race. The 1934 British Empire Trophy featured Iris and her Talbot taking on the steep Test Hill, winning the trophy for touring cars.

WASA held a Welsh Trial in 1935. Iris did not compete this time, but acted as a steward. In the summer, she entered her car into the club's Silver Jubilee Motor Gala at the Hurlingham Club, in honour of George V. The following year, she represented the club as a judge in the Bexhill Concours d'Elegance.

A "Lady Iris Capell Trophy" was awarded in 1937, to Miss EV Watson, who participated in the club's Cotswold Trial in a Frazer Nash-BMW.

Although her competition career wound down, she remained an active and senior part of the WASA motoring committee, as well as playing golf occasionally at its tournaments. As an officer of WASA, she was invited to speak at many functions, from gala dinners to road safety conferences. She was still a figure in the automotive business world and was a director of at least one engineering company.

Her other major interest, which she maintained throughout her life, was the theatre. She wrote plays herself, translated them from French, acted as a young woman and produced many amateur shows, as well as opening her own theatrical bookshop, serving amateur dramatic societies, and even owning (or co-owning) a couple of theatres.

When the Second World War looked like it was about to break out, she became a leading member of the Women's Voluntary Services for Civil Defence, managing the transport department. In the papers, she was keen to stress that the women of the WVS were "not just a set of well-meaning amateurs who would only end by fussing around and getting in the way of responsible people." Although her advocacy was largely successful, she did embarrass herself in 1941 by getting pulled over for speeding in uniform, on her way to a meeting at Erith.

She and fellow rally driver Morna Vaughan led a group of twelve drivers in a night-time, no-headlights trial at a private road in Croydon. A report in Queen magazine, which covered official WASA stories, suggested that they were all racing drivers.

Later, she campaigned for the Liberal party, sitting on the executive committee between 1957 and 1962. In 1960, she got herself into another automotive scrape when her car collided with a bus near Thame. She suffered a head injury but recovered.

At one point, she was rumoured to be a potential bride for Prince Edward, later the Duke of Windsor, but the union never happened. 

She died in 1977.

(Image from The Genealogist Image Archive)

Speedqueens at War

This weekend’s commemorations of the Battle of Passchendaele have inspired me to write something slightly different for Speedqueens.

Women served in and alongside the military in many ways during the First World War. Ladies who had been part of the motoring scene were well-represented among them.

Muriel Thompson was probably the most famous of the military Speedqueens. Muriel, who had raced at Brooklands, served in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry from 1915. She was stationed in Belgium. Her motoring experience made her an ideal choice for driving ambulances; transporting casualties and performing battlefield first aid were among the duties of the FANY.

Her first diary entry of 1916 reads:

Jan 1st We have started the first woman’s M.A.C. (Motor Ambulance Convoy) ever to work for the British Army. Our camp is on a little hill near the sea, behind the Casino. Most of us live in tents and bathing machines. I share a small chalet with three others. The weather is fiendish, gales and torrents of rain. The cars are old and in a bad state, and we are short of drivers. We mess in a big tent, all together. Lots of work but are all so very pleased to be here.

“Thompers”, as she was known, received the Order of Leopold II from the King of the Belgians, in recognition of her courage under fire. This was in addition to the French Croix de Guerre and the British Military Medal. The British award was for “conspicuous devotion to duty during an hostile air raid”, during which the FANY drivers continued to work under aerial bombardment.

She rose up the FANY ranks and was commanding convoys before the end of the war. Aside from occasional testing, she did not return to motorsport after the Armistice.

Muriel’s greatest rival in the Brooklands Ladies’ Bracelet Handicap of 1908 was Christabel Ellis. Christabel also served in the military and used her motoring skills. She was one of the original leaders of the Women’s Legion and served as a Commandant in the Motor Transport section. The Legion was formed in 1915. Christabel is said to have driven ambulances in France and Serbia prior to this, as a Red Cross volunteer. Her main job post-1916 was handling recruitment to the Legion. She was also involved in managing teams of despatch riders. She was made an OBE in 1918 and a CBE the year after.

Christabel Ellis sometimes hillclimbed a sidecar combination with her cousin, Mary Ellis. Mary was much younger than Christabel, but the pair were good friends. The younger Miss Ellis was an ambulance driver too and served with the Red Cross in 1917. At about this time, she became one of the first qualified female medical doctors in the UK.

Ethel Locke King was one of the founders of Brooklands, the first woman to drive on the circuit and runner-up to Muriel Thompson in the 1908 Ladies’ Bracelet Handicap. She did not venture to the front herself but she did found fifteen auxiliary hospitals in Surrey for injured soldiers. One of them was set up in her own house at Brooklands itself. Ethel was the Assistant County Director for the Voluntary Aid Detachment, a female nursing corps. She was in charge of 19 companies of VAD nurses, over 700 individuals. For this, she was made a Dame in 1918.

Some Speedqueens began their racing careers after the War, perhaps having developed their driving skills in military service. Gwenda Hawkes, the Montlhéry and Brooklands record-breaker, drove a Red Cross ambulance on the Eastern Front. She may have been a colleague of Christabel Ellis. She was Gwenda Glubb then, and began racing motorcycles with her first husband, Sam Janson, whom she met during the war.

Morna Vaughan and Lady Iris Capell would become senior figures in the Women’s Automobile and Sports Association in the late 1920s. They both competed in rallies, including the Monte Carlo Rally.

Like Mary Ellis, Morna Vaughan (then Morna Rawlins) was a medical doctor, one of the UK’s first female surgeons. She is believed to have served in a military hospital. Her specialism was gynaecology and genito-urinary medicine, so it is unclear what sort of medicine she was practising at the front.

Iris Capell joined up as a nurse with the Red Cross, aged nineteen. She worked in military hospitals in the south of England. Iris was a lifelong committee woman and a senior figure in the Women’s Voluntary Service during the Second World War.

This is not an exhaustive list and it is very Anglocentric. Please feel free to comment with your own suggestions, or email me.

(Image copyright Mary Evans Picture Library)