FORTUNE INHERITED.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18848, 10 April 1931, Page 10

FORTUNE INHERITED.

RACING MOTORIST BECOMES BARONET. United Press Association—Bv Electrlo Telegraph—Copyright LONDON, April 8. The death is announced of the millionaire baronet Sir Stanley Birkin, father of Captain H. Birkin, who succeeds to the title. Henry Ralph Stanley Birkin. the English racing motorist, was born at Nottingham in 1895. His father was Sir Stanley Birkin, a millionaire lace manufacturer. After service in the World War Captain Birkin took up engineering as a career, with a particular leaning towards the design and construction of motor-car engines. Becoming interested in track racing, he prepared a number of cars, which were run in various contests by expert drivers, and won a number of prizes. In the course of time he had a fleet of cars of his own—a kind of private

“stable” in Hertfordshire with a large workshop managed by a “trainer” very much as a racing stable is run. He also drove cars in contests himself, winning in 1920. with Captain Barnato, the twenty-four hours’ endurance race at Le Mans and also achieving the most remarkable British performance in the Ulster Tourist Trophy race. His aim being to keep British motors in the forefront, he spent large sums in preparing and entering cars for the chief events on the Continent. At the beginning of 1930 he was joined for this purpose, actively and financially, by the Hon. Dorothy Paget, daughter of Lord Queenborough. She had recently become interested in motor racing through visiting Brooklands, Britain’s chief track.

In April she accompanied Captain Birkin in a race as his mechanic. In the same month he made a new record at Brooklands by travelling a lap of two miles and three-quarters at a speed of 135.33 miles per hour in an all-British Bentley against Kaye Don’s 134.2 miles per hour. In August, after wining a race on the same track, he was disqualified on the ground that he had pased on the wrong side of a “safety line.” As a protest he resigned his membership of the Brooklands Club. Shortly afterwards he crashed when travelling at over 100 miles per hour at Belfast, but was unhurt. A few days later he had a similar escape on a road in London, when his car was smashed by a motor coach.