Margaret Allan

Margaret Mabel Gladys Jennings (née Allan; 26 July 1909 – 21 September 1998) was a Scottish motor racing driver. As Margaret Allan (sometimes erroneously "Allen") she was one of the leading British female racing and rally drivers in the inter-war years, and one of only four women ever to earn a 120 mph badge at the Brooklands circuit. During the war, Jennings worked as an ambulance driver and then at Bletchley Park's intelligence de-coding centre. After the war, she became a journalist and was Vogue magazine's motoring correspondent from 1948 to 1957.

Early life Margaret Allan was born in Troon, Ayrshire, in July 1909. She was the daughter of James Allan, a member of the wealthy Scottish-Canadian family who owned the Allan Line steamship company. A keen horsewoman from an early age, Allan's mother nurtured her independent streak and encouraged her to learn to drive as soon as she was old enough.

Career Racing driver Allan's earliest entries into competitive motor sport were with her family's Lagonda, driving in trials events organized by the Women's Automobile and Sports Association (WASA). In December 1930, she successfully completed the London-Gloucester Trial in the Lagonda, earning the Ladies' Prize, her driving described as "neat and fast" by Motor Sport magazine. She continued to enter trials and rally events over the following few years, often taking class and ladies' wins. Allan's first international-level rally was the 1932 Monte Carlo Rally, that she entered in a works Riley Nine with co-driver Eve Staniland. The pair finished in 10th position overall, and second in the Coupe des Dames.

Also in 1932, Allan had her first taste of circuit racing. Following a visit to the Brooklands circuit, she persuaded her father to buy a faster, supercharged, 2-litre Lagonda. It was with this car that she made her circuit debut at Brooklands, driving as part of the WASA entry in the popular Inter-Club Meeting. She returned to Brooklands for the 1933 Inter-Club Meeting, but had upgraded her mount to a 4½-litre Bentley. Although the WASA team only finished in third position, Allan herself took her first outright circuit race victory, as she finished first in the Junior Long Handicap event. Allan's fastest lap was timed at 97.65 mph. She maintained close links to MG, and was a lead driver of George Eyston's "Dancing Daughters", a three car, all-female entry in the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans race, driving works-prepared MG PAs.

1935 was also the year that saw Margaret Allan first drive one of the cars with which she was to become most strongly associated: Richard Marker's Bentley 4½ Litre, "Old Mother Gun". This car had won the 1928 24 Hours of Le Mans race as a factory Bentley entry, but since passing into Marker's ownership had been fitted with a streamlined, single-seater body that had formerly been fitted to a 3-litre car owned by Woolf Barnato, in place of the car's original tourer coachwork. Although her best result in 1935 with Old Mother Gun was only a second place, she was more successful with Dudley Folland's single-seat Frazer Nash Shelsley. With this car she won the handicap race at the August Bank Holiday Meeting, with a race lap best of 119.15 mph.

Following her marriage Margaret Jennings did make one brief return to competition, in the Circuit of Ireland rally in 1950. There, she worked in the "intelligence de-coding centre,"

Journalism After the war Jennings became a journalist and was Vogue magazine's motoring correspondent for many years in the 1940s and 1950s, In addition to her motoring activities she also became a proficient gardener, and won multiple Royal Horticultural Society prizes over the following decades as well as exhibiting at the Chelsea Flower Show.

Margaret Jennings died in Carmarthenshire, aged 89, in September 1998.