Daisy in her 120hp Fiat, 1906
Daisy Hampson was known for driving extremely powerful cars in Edwardian beachfront speed trials.
She was a rather enigmatic driver, active in a variety of cars from about 1904. She was from Southport near Liverpool, very wealthy, and could drive from at least 1903. Her first car appears to have been a Lanchester, which she did not race. When she presented trophies at the 1903 Southport Speed Trials, she was described as an “experienced motorist”.
In 1904, she entered the Bexhill Speed Trial, possibly her first big seaside meeting. She drove a 60hp Mercedes in the Touring class and was defeated in her heat by Sidney Girling. It was claimed afterwards in The Motor that she had borrowed the car and was not as familiar with it as she might have liked. It is unclear whether she was driving the same car for the event’s opening “Parade of Motor Vehicles”, although the Bexhill Observer described her car as a “powerful-looking Mercedes.”
The Dublin Daily Express was similarly impressed by the Mercedes when she entered it into the Portmarnock Motor Races shortly afterwards, calling it “the largest car ever driven in a race by a lady.” The results of the Portmarnock races themselves are not forthcoming.
At the end of 1904, she is documented as breaking a women’s endurance record, with a 317-mile journey made in one day in a 60hp Mercedes, although perhaps not the same one she used at Bexhill. She was driving through Wales as part of a 1035-mile tour.
After familiarising herself with racing on asphalt and sampling an actual beach race in Ireland, she set her sights on mastering promenades. Her next British event was the 1905 Blackpool speed trials, in the Mercedes. She is described as an entrant in “Class 4”, but she does not appear to have been among the leaders.
From 1906, she owned an even more powerful car, a 120hp Fiat. A report on the Manchester Motor Show from February 1906 claims that the Fiat was the Gordon Bennett runner-up driven by Felice Nazzaro, which was exhibited by coachwork builders Cockshoot. Further articles suggest that Daisy won some prizes in this car, perhaps in speed trials, but no results are forthcoming. A 1915 article about female motorists in The Gentlewoman mentions an Itala “of large horsepower”, although this may have been a road car, like the Rolls Royce that Daisy enthuses about in the same article. Talking about the Fiat in a 1906 edition of The Car, she does say it is “too speedy” for British roads, which suggests its intended use was touring. In the same interview, she expresses sadness that the Blackpool and Brighton events have been stopped, and states that “I mean to enter any races, however, which may suit my cars and try my luck.”
She is mentioned again in The Gentlewoman in 1917, with the Rolls referenced once more.
Her motoring career also hit a low point during 1906, on the open road rather than the circuit. She was sued for damages by a motorcyclist who was involved in a crash with her car in Southam, Warwickshire. The accident itself happened in October 1905, when a Mr GH Field was knocked off his motorbike, over a bridge and into a field by Daisy’s car, causing serious injuries. She was sanctioned as the owner of the car, but it may well have been her chauffeur driving.
Like Dorothy Levitt who was active at the same time, Daisy’s origins are mysterious and her disappearance from public life abrupt. One clue as to who she was comes from a 1996 edition of the Liverpool Echo, in which a 1963 interview with a “veteran motorist” called John Dickinson was quoted. Dickinson describes the first lady motorist he ever saw, in Ormskirk in 1904. “Her name was Daisy Hampson, and she too hailed from Southport, as did her car, a Vulcan”.
The Vulcan car company was run by brothers Thomas and Joseph Hampson between 1902 and 1916. Research by Nina Baker shows that there was a large Catholic family in the Southport area called Hampson, although she was unable to place Daisy within it. Her given name was probably not Daisy; no records for a “Daisy Hampson” exist.
After around 1917, she stops appearing in the press, save an article in the Sunday Dispatch from 1935, in which Sir Harry Preston describes being driven around Brighton in a “mighty Mercedes” by Daisy in 1905, in preparation for that year’s Speed Trials. Their trip occurred early in the morning, before daytime traffic built up. “She had to go out in her monster at dawn,” he recounts. “I could not appear timid before a good-looking young woman, so I said I would be charmed.”
Daisy had made some modifications to her car, removing the windscreen for greater streamlining. This proved prescient, as a flying detached mudguard whizzed harmlessly over their heads instead of shattering the glass. That said, Sir Harry asks to finish their ride at this point. Sadly, he offers no further information on what she was doing at the point the article was written.
It is possible that Daisy married and started using a different name, but public records provide no supporting information for this.
You can read more of Nina Baker’s research here.
(Image from The Car, 1906, via prewarcar.com)
