Gone but not forgotten - Margaret Allan

Code-breaker, ambulance driver – and racer who should be more celebrated

Born into a wealthy, politically active family in Patterton, Renfrewshire, on 26 July 1909, Margaret Allan attended the famously liberal Hampshire school, Bedales. Her father James hailed from the family that owned the Allan Line shipping company, her aunt Jane was a suffragette, and her mother encouraged her to learn how to drive as soon as she could.

Motoring pushed Allan’s interest in horses to one side and competition beckoned. In 1930 she won a trial, organised by the Women’s Automobile & Sports Association, in the family Lagonda and by January 1932 she was co-driving a Works Riley Nine with Eve Staniland on the Monte Carlo Rally. They were tenth in the Light Car class and second in the Coupes des Dames, leading to another co-drive and then piloting on the Monte from 1933 to 1935.

Allan took to the track in June 1932, at the wheel of her family’s new supercharged Lagonda for the Novices’ Handicap at the BARC Inter-Club Meeting, but her first Brooklands race ended in retirement when the engine was overwhelmed by a borrowed, oversized blower. Next she entered her Bentley 4½-litre daily into the seven-day Alpine Trial, although at the 11th hour she tried to traverse a level crossing while the gates descended. The Bentley took a battering but, with her brother as co-driver, Allan still managed to compete by buying a Wolseley Hornet Special and was singled out for praise by Motor Sport. She and fellow Hornet driver, Mrs Martin, secured the Glacier Cups and shared the Ladies’ Cup.

In 1933, Allan started to make an impression at Brooklands. She won her first race in her Bentley, a handicap event at the BARC Inter- Club Meeting, at 87.53mph with a flying lap of 97.65mph around the Outer Circuit. After the handicappers underestimated her, she won 1934 Easter Meeting’s Ripley Junior Long Handicap race by three-quarters of a mile.

This led to an invitation to join Irene Schwendler’s trio of MG NE Magnettes in the George Eyston-devised Light Car Club’s 200-mile Relay Race. Allan, Schwendler and Doreen Evans were intended to compete for the Ladies’ Award but took third place overall. During the BARC’s 1935 Easter Meeting, Allan raced her 4½-litre Bentley in the nine mile Easter Junior Long Handicap – finishing second, just 500 yards behind Kay Petre driving Richard Shuttleworth’s Bugatti in a 118.12mph race (a record for a lady driver).

In 1935 she joined Eyston’s ‘Dancing Daughters’ Le Mans team, campaigning MG P-type Midgets. She was paired with Colleen Eaton and the MG trio finished in formation, with Allan/Eaton securing 26th place.

Two Brooklands regulars who helped raise Allan’s profile were Dudley Folland and Richard Marker. Folland owned a twin-blower Frazer Nash Shelsley that, after it retired at Le Mans in 1935, was fitted with a monoposto body by Robin Jackson. Marker, meanwhile, had acquired the 4½-litre Bentley ‘OldMother Gun’ in 1932.When Allan rented and raced it, as the ‘Marker-Jackson Special’, it was on its third body. Marker had bought and fitted the 1½-seater streamline body from the Barnato/Froy 3/4½-litre – and, after the 4½-litre had shed its flywheel during the 1934 BARC 500, it was powered by a modified 6½-litre Speed Six engine.

In the Frazer Nash, Allan was generally as successful as Folland wasn’t, setting an unofficial 1500cc Brooklands lap record during practice for the 1935 August Bank Holiday Meeting (127.05mph). An official attempt was stopped when the Nash lost a chain. She won the First August Short Handicap race, was clocked at 110mph, and beat second-placed chap, PF Jucker, by 150 yards. Then, driving AFP Fane’s similar Nash at the June 1936 Shelsley Walsh meeting, Allan won the Ladies’ Trophy by beating Kay Petre’s best time (51sec) by three seconds. Her remarkable 48sec run was faster than both the 3.0- and 5.0-litre supercharged class winners.

Allan’s status was cemented by her 1936 exploits in the powerful but tricky Marker- Jackson Special. In the Second March Short Handicap she lapped Brooklands at 119.15mph from scratch and was narrowly unplaced. She then dominated the Second Whitsun Long Handicap, winning at 115.25mph and posting a sizzling best of 122.37mph to become one of very few women to get a BARC 120mph badge.

That was some achievement given that, due to the height difference between herself and Marker, she drove with cushions wedged behind her back to reach the pedals.

This charming, dynamic and still young woman’s last season was 1936, but that just meant she carried her indomitable spirit and can-do attitude into other fields. In 1937 she married future editor of the Motor Christopher Jennings and the couple had a son. During WW2, Margaret (then Jennings) went from driving ambulances to working at Bletchley Park in Hut 4. After the war, she was motoring correspondent for Vogue between 1948 and 1957 and in 1950 she took one final triumph by winning the ladies’ prize on the Circuit of Ireland Rally.

Later her passions grew to include cruising and gardening, with a successful exhibit at the RHS Chelsea. Christopher died in 1982, with Margaret joining him on 21 September 1998.

Left Margaret Allan at Brooklands with Dudley Folland’s Frazer Nash Shelsley, then wearing ‘Robinery’ monoposto body.