Kenelm Lee Guinness
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Kenelm Edward "Bill" Lee Guinness , OBE , (born August 14, 1887 in Dublin , † April 10, 1937 in London ) was an Irish - British entrepreneur, as well as record and racing driver .
family
Kenelm Lee Guinness was a member of the Guinness family of entrepreneurs and brewers who sell the world-famous Irish beer brand Guinness . His father was Benjamin Lee Guinness (1842–1900), the third son of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness (1798–1868), whose grandfather Arthur Guinness had started brewing the dark beer type Porter in 1778 . Kenelms Lee Guinness' uncle Arthur and Edward ran the brewery. His mother was Lady Henrietta Eliza St. Lawence , daughter of Thomas St Lawrence, 3rd Earl of Howth . His father moved the family to England and served there as a captain in the Royal Horse Guards .
He received the education of an upper class British boy . After visiting the Eton College , he studied at Trinity College of the University of Cambridge , but went off without qualifications.
Racing career
Kenelm Lee Guinness came to motorsport as the driving mechanic of his older brother Algernon Lee Guinness (1883–1954) and neglected his studies in the process. He contested his first race as a driver in 1907 on a Darracq at the International Tourist Trophy on the Snaefell Mountain Course on the Isle of Man , where he retired early after a broken rear axle. In the same year he achieved his first great success when he was at the VI. Circuit des Ardennes on the same Darracq came second behind Daimler driver Pierre de Caters .
In the early 1910s he met Louis Coatalen , who was working as an engine developer at Sunbeam . Coatalen became a close friend of Lee Guinness, who supported his driving career, and brought the young driver to Sunbeam as a factory driver in 1913 . In addition to his involvement in Grand Prix races, Lee Guinness was best known as a record driver. Even before World War I , he drove speed records on the Brooklands racetrack . On May 18, 1922, he set world records for half a mile, mile, two miles and kilometer with a flying start with the Sunbeam 350HP . It was the last record on a racetrack.
In 1921 he had his best Grand Prix season. With the Talbot-Darracq 56 developed by Coatalen , he won the Voiturette race in Brooklands, the Coupe des Voiturettes in Le Mans and the Gran Premio de Penya Rhin .
A week after his last race victory at the JCC 200 in Brooklands, he had a serious accident on September 27, 1924 at the Gran Premio de San Sebastián . Lee Guinness, who drove a Sunbeam DA8667 , got a new co-driver for this race. His regular mechanic Bill Perkins was seriously injured in an English hospital after surviving Dario Resta's accident in Brooklands. Resta had died in a record attempt after a puncture. Lee Guinness competed with Tom Barrett . The track was wet after rain at night and smeared with oil from the training runs. The marshals threw in good faith earth onto the web, they made thus only slippery from it. On the eleventh lap, Lee Guinness skidded on this slide and lost control of the racing car. The sunbeam overturned and the two occupants fell out of the cockpit. While Barrett died at the scene of the accident, Lee Guinness got away with broken bones and head injuries. The accident not only ended Lee Guinness' driving career, it also ended the era of the passenger racing mechanics.
KLG spark plugs
Like many fellow racing drivers of his era, Kenelm Lee Guinness was interested in technical innovations. This interest led in 1912 to the founding of KLG sparkplugs , a company that spark produced. The company expanded quickly thanks to several innovative patents. During the First World War, up to 1,200 women worked at the factory in the Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames , producing 4,000 spark plugs a week. KLG supplied both the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force . As the owner and manager of a war-important company , Lee Guinness was exempt from working with weapons. In 1919 he sold the production facilities to the Smiths Group at a great profit .
death
After the end of his racing career and the long period of convalescence , Lee Guinness lived in seclusion either in London or on his sailing yacht Ocean River , which he owned together with Malcolm Campbell . The serious accident and death of Tom Barrett had left serious marks. He suffered from depression and constant headaches . His marriage to Josephine Strangman , the youngest daughter of Sir Thomas Joseph Strangman , in 1928 , was divorced in 1936. The couple had two children, a son and a daughter. He spent the last months of his life in a nursing home , where he committed suicide on April 10, 1937 . His brother found him and a suicide note. He died of carbon monoxide poisoning .
literature
- David Culshaw, Peter Horrobin: The Complete Catalog of British Cars 1895-1975. Veloce Publishing plc, Dorchester 1997, ISBN 1-874105-93-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ About Kenelm Lee Guinness (English)
- ^ Algernon Lee Guinness at Historic Racing
- ↑ Circuit der Ardennes 1907 (English)
- ^ Paul Clifton: The fastest men at the wheel. The history of the world speed records in the automobile, (The fastest men on earth, New York 1964, German), trans. by Günther Görtz, Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 1968
- ↑ Gran Premio de San Sebastián 1924
- ↑ On the death of Kenelm Lee Guinness (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Guinness, Kenelm Lee |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Guinness, Kenelm Edward Lee (full name); Guinness, Bill (nickname) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British entrepreneur and racing car driver |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 14, 1887 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Dublin |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 10, 1937 |
| Place of death | London |