Henrietta Lister

 

Henrietta Lister owned and raced an Aston Martin in the 1920s, sometimes competing at Brooklands. She was sometimes known as Mabel, her middle name.

Pictures of her in racing garb next to a car at Brooklands exist from 1924, but no race results. The car was a “Bamford-type” Aston with a 1500cc side-valve engine, according to Henrietta’s obituary in a 1983 edition of the Brooklands Society Gazette. The author, Geoffrey Smith, states that she raced for four seasons only, which would have been between 1924 and 1928. How and why this professional ballet dancer, dance teacher and art graduate came to own and race such a car, no-one really knows.

The car itself was sometimes looked after by Jack Waters, who would later find fame as the actor Jack Warner. His two sisters were the comedy performers “Gert and Daisy”, friends of Henrietta, and it is possible that the Waters family formed the link between her and motor racing. Another is that she had served in the Scottish Women’s Hospital corps during WWI, working as a driver of ambulances and lorries. She saw action on the Eastern Front in Serbia and may have come across Gwenda Glubb, who was active at Brooklands as Gwenda Stewart at the same time as Henrietta.

In 1925, she was second in two editions of the Essex Long Handicap. One of these was captured on a film titled “Woman Motorist’s 90 Mile an Hour!” 

Later in the year, she entered a 50-mile handicap with the same club, although her finishing position is not recorded. Pictures show her car in action at meetings of the Middlesex Motor Club. At the time, the main organising club at Brooklands did not hold mixed races, but many regional clubs did.

The BARC relaxed its stance somewhat on female drivers in 1928 and she was third in a Ladies’ Handicap held during the August Bank Holiday meeting, behind Margaret Maconochie’s Amilcar and Ruth Urquhart Dykes in an Alvis.

There is some confusion about when exactly Henrietta competed, as other drivers often used her car, and she was named as the entrant. Jack Waters was one of those who drove the Aston.

After her time as a racing driver, she married William Burrill-Robinson and took up watercolour painting, exhibiting regularly in Yorkshire. According to her obituary, she had sold the Aston to a passing soldier at some time during WWII for £35, having helped him to hide some contraband petrol.

She had previously been a ballet dancer, using the name "Henrietta Listakova". Under this name, she performed in a “charity ballet” in West Acton in 1923. Her performances included The Dying Swan and a foxtrot with another dancer called Arthur Barron. The event was organised by a Miss Mabel Lister, who may have been Henrietta using another name, or a relative. She had been born in Australia and lived in Acton with relatives as a girl, one of whom could be Mabel. Mabel Lister’s dance school taught “Russian ballet and ballroom”, which tallies well with “Mabel Listakova’s” performance.

Henrietta died in 1983, reportedly after suffering heart trouble for much of her life. This never seemed to stop her from seeking excitement or facing adversity.

(Image copyright Brooklands Gazette. Thanks to James Thorne)