Malcolm Campbell


Sir Malcolm Campbell was a British racing motorist and motoring journalist. He gained the world speed record on land and on water at various times, using vehicles called Blue Bird, including a 1921 Grand Prix Sunbeam. His son, Donald Campbell, carried on the family tradition by holding both land speed and water speed records.

Early life and family

Campbell was born on 11 March 1885 in Chislehurst, Kent, the only son of William Campbell, a Hatton Garden diamond seller. He attended the independent Uppingham School. In Germany, learning the diamond trade, he gained an interest in motorbikes and races. Returning to Britain, he worked for two years at Lloyd's of London for no pay, then for another year at £1 a week.
Between 1906 and 1908, he won all three London to Land's End Trials motorcycle races. In 1910, he began racing cars at Brooklands. He christened his car Blue Bird, painting it blue, after seeing the play The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck at the Haymarket Theatre.
Campbell married Marjorie Dagmar Knott in 1913, but they divorced two years later.
Campbell then married Dorothy Evelyn Whittall in 1920; their son Donald was born in 1921, and their daughter, Jean, in 1923. Dorothy, who became Lady Campbell when he was knighted in 1931, later described him as "quite unfitted for the role of husband and family man". They divorced in 1940.
Campbell married Betty Nicory in 1945 in Chelsea.
Campbell wrote a number of "motoring mystery" novels including Salute to the Gods which was the source material for the 1939 motion picture Burn 'Em Up O'Connor.
In 1935, for the Ford Motor Company, he narrated the short film, Your Driving Test, which provided advice to prospective drivers on how to pass the new driving test that had been introduced in the UK that year.

Military service

At the outbreak of the First World War, Campbell initially enlisted as a motorcycle dispatch rider and fought at the Battle of Mons in August 1914. Shortly afterwards he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the 5th Battalion, Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment, a Territorial Force unit, on 2 September 1914. He was soon drafted into the Royal Flying Corps, where he was a ferry pilot, for his instructors believed he was too clumsy to make the grade as a fighter pilot.
During the late 1930s, he commanded the provost company of the 56th (London) Division of the Territorial Army. From 1940 to 1942, he commanded the military police contingent of the Coats Mission tasked with evacuating King George VI, Queen [Elizabeth the Queen Mother|Queen Elizabeth] and their immediate family from London in the event of German invasion. On 23 January 1943 he was transferred from the Corps of Military Police to the General List. On 16 December 1945, having attained the age limit of 60, Campbell relinquished his commission and was granted the honorary rank of major.

Grand Prix career

Campbell competed in Grand Prix motor racing, winning the 1927 and 1928 Grand Prix de Boulogne in France driving a Bugatti T37A.

Land speed record

Campbell broke the land speed record for the first time in 1924 at at Pendine Sands near Carmarthen Bay in a 350HP V12 Sunbeam, now on display at the National [Motor Museum, Beaulieu]. He broke nine land speed records between 1924 and 1935, with three at Pendine Sands and five at Daytona Beach. His first two records were accomplished whilst driving a racing car built by Sunbeam.
In 1925 Campbell set a new lap record of at Brooklands in a streamlined Chrysler Six.
On 4 February 1927, Campbell set the land speed record at Pendine Sands, covering the Flying Kilometre at and the Flying Mile in, in the Napier-Campbell Blue Bird.
He set his final land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah on 3 September 1935, and was the first person to drive an automobile over 300 mph, averaging in two passes.

Water speed records

Campbell developed and flotation-tested Blue Bird on Tilgate Lake, in Tilgate Park, Crawley. He set the water speed record four times, his highest speed being in the Blue Bird K4. He set the record on 19 August 1939 on Coniston Water, Lancashire.

Politics

Campbell stood for Parliament without success at the 1935 general election in Deptford for the Conservative Party, despite his links to the British Union of Fascists. Reportedly, he once adorned his car with a Fascist pennant of the London Volunteer Transport Service, though there has been no photographic evidence to support this claim.

Death

Campbell died after a series of strokes in 1948 in Reigate, Surrey, aged 63. He was one of the few land speed record holders of his era to die of natural causes, for so many had died in crashes.

Honours and awards