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Daisy Hampton and her 60 hp Mercedes
During research for the soon-to-be-released Edwardian motorsport book ‘Rise of The Sidevalves’, a number of period photographs have come to light forwarded by the descendants of Hubert Woods, the organiser of the 1904 Blackpool Speed Trials.
The first image shown depicts racing driver Miss Daisy Hampton of Southport driving what looks like a Mercedes 60 on Blackpool promenade, with her chauffeur alongside. It is interesting to note Hiram Maxim’s Captive Flying Machine can also be clearly seen in the background, incredibly this ride is still earning it’s keep, in the same location, one hundred and sixteen years later!
Although we have identified the lady driver, we would like to know more about her or her car, does anyone have further information about Daisy or the Mercedes (possibly registered N675)?
There is a second image of the same car clothed in its usual body, quite a machine.
Words by Thomas Fryars.
Publiziert:
Freitag September 11th, 2020
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Kommentare
Grimmo
12 September 2020, 22:14
Ariejan Bos
13 September 2020, 10:22
The remark on the number 16 is interesting, but the shape of the 6 on the car during the 1905 Gordon Bennett race is clearly different from the 6 on the Blackpool car. However it is still possible that the 16 painted on the radiator has no relation to the Blackpool event and nr. 33 could indeed be the actual participant number. Remains the issue of Cagno vs Millet ...
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Ariejan Bos
11 September 2020, 20:38
This last photo is not 1904 but 1905. We see Clifford Earp on the 90hp Napier and winner of the flying mile. No. 16 is the 100hp Gordon Bennett Fiat driven by Victor Millet in same event. There is a mystery here, because according to The Car Illustrated the 100hp Fiat would have been driven by Cagno. There is even a photo of him in the Fiat, but now carrying no.33. The problem here is that all cars carried numbers, but these weren't shown in the results. This will need some further research! Anyway, I found another photo of Miss Hampson during this Blackpool meet, where she competed in a flying kilometer scratch race. Without much success though, she finished on last place.
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Tom Fryars
11 September 2020, 16:15
Here is another image in the same 1904 series framing the famous Napier, but what is No16 seen behind?
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Philip Lucking
11 September 2020, 15:23
This is likely to be a finishers medal from the the last 1906 event.
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Philip Lucking
11 September 2020, 11:57
I think this speed event took over from the Southport sprints which had become so popular that the crowds had become too much to manage, risking danger to the public and entrants. Blackpool having more promenade space was keen to take it on hence the venue change. How long did the event stay at Blackpool? 96HP Wolsley and 100HP Darracq being flagged off at the start, but who were the drivers?
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Ariejan Bos
11 September 2020, 13:12
About the speed trials: I have only information on Southport in 1903. The Blackpool meeting seems to have taken place from 1904 to 1906.
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Ariejan Bos
11 September 2020, 13:10
These would have been A. Callan on the Wolseley and A.L. Guinness on the 100hp Darracq. There were two heats in this L Class (racing cars weighing less than 1000 kgs), the other also having a Wolseley and a Darracq as opponents, but the Darracq in this case was one of the Gordon Bennett Darracqs with 'only' 80hp.
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Ariejan Bos
11 September 2020, 10:38
The Fiat racer, mentioned by Kevin Atkinson, can be seen at this other page from The Car Illustrated (August 15th, 1906) including some additional information. Quite a lady!
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Ariejan Bos
11 September 2020, 09:18
I have to make a correction, because on the added page from The Car Illustrated of Sept. 14th, 1904 it appears that her name was Miss Daisy Hampson. Anyway, this page (which dates from about a month before the Blackpool races) gives some information on her Mercedes and on her driving background as well. And she was definitely not the only female driver performing in the Blackpool races! Interesting also the car behind her on the left, which appears to be a 1903 Napier Gordon Bennett racer. The car behind in the distance with nr. 8 is a Daimler.
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Kevin Atkinson
11 September 2020, 05:17
Daisy's name was Hampson, not Hampton. She competed in this 60hp Mercedes and from 1906 in an ex Gordon Bennett FIAT racer
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‘We had laid down a tarmac surface for the motor racing boys along the sea front between the Palace Pier and Black Rock... Daisy Hampson, one of the first women to drive a car, had brought down a fearsome Mercedes. It had no windscreen and an enormous engine. “Can you get up at dawn?” she asked me. “For you,” I responded, “I can get up at any time.” “Good,” said she. “Then you can come and try my car out with me at dawn tomorrow. There’ll be no traffic on the road then.” So, at dawn I climbed into the fearsome machine with the intrepid Daisy. Bang-bang-bang we went to the high downs, and then Daisy let her out. The roar was deafening. The wind took my breath away. Suddenly, crash! Something huge and black whizzed at us. We ducked, the car swerved, righted, swerved, righted – thank heavens the girl at the wheel was one of the sort who keep their heads in an emergency. A mile before we could pull up – four wheel brakes were unheard of in those pioneer days. What happened? The right front mudguard had been torn off and shot by the whirling wheel like a projectile at us. If we hadn’t ducked we would have been decapitated. If there had been a wind screen, it would have shattered and the fragments crashed into our faces.’
Lucky that time but her craving for speed was costly and must have rubbed off on her chauffeur Mr Ward, that’s possibly him with her in 1904 at Blackpool. In February 1906, she settled out of court a claim for substantial damages by a motorcyclist who had been shunted off a bridge by him speeding and seriously injured near Banbury in October 1905.
February 1906 was an expensive month for Daisy as she purchased the ex-Nazzarro, Gordon Bennett 120h.p. Fiat, which was on show in Manchester and which in photos of the 1905 Gordon Bennett race is carrying No.16 on the radiator...