Murray Jamieson & Peggy Williams Fatal Crash @ Brooklands 1938 (Aftermath)
- 6 months ago
The sixth International Trophy handicap race of the Junior Car Club (JCC) was held at Brooklands on Saturday, 07 May 1938. The configuration used only for the 1937 and 1938 editions of the event, provided an excellent balance between road and track circuit. It was a 3.369-mile (5.421-kilometer) course which rolling start was located on the Railway Straight, with cars running in clockwise direction round the Members' Banking to the finishig straight and onto the left-handed hairpin of the link section of the Campbell Circuit, embracing part of the road circuit. The course took a right-hand hairpin, rejoining the Members' Banking towards its conclusion. Then the cars would run down to the Fork and onto the Byfleet Banking and the Railway Straight again.
Winner of the race was Percy Maclure in his self-prepared 1.7-litre six-cylinder Riley, from Raymond Mays driving a supercharged ERA.
The race was marred by a very serious accident that resulted in the deaths of two spectators and several others seriously injured. It happened in the early laps, when Frenchman Joseph Paul's Delage caught fire opposite the pits, due to unspent fuel accumulating in a pool in the undershield. The inevitable spark caused flames to burst into the cockpit, and Joseph Paul attempted to get the car to the edge of the track, coming up the new finishing straight, apparently trying to run onto the grass verge without hitting the other cars that were running in close proximity to his Delage. Badly burned and partly gassed, Paul collided with Alfred C. Lace's Talbot-Darracq as it passed him. Both cars were pitched out of track, going up the band and running clean through the confined spectator area to collapse the fence on the other side, involving a group of spectators.
The burning Delage #9 dived down amongst the crowd, injuring ten persons, one of whom, a young woman named Peggy Williams, 23, of Wembley Park, London, was killed upon impact. Amongst the injured people who were taken to hospital, were Noel Pope, Frank Beart, Robert Waddy, Mrs. Jill Thomas and Mrs. K. Petre, W. E. Humphries, Douglas Hawkes, Miss Haig and T. Murray Jamieson, the brilliant twin-cam Austin OHC Racer and ERA supercharger designer. The latter would succumb to his fractured skull three days later at Weybridge Hospital in Weybridge, Surrey, bringing the death roll for the crash up to two.
Lace's Darracq was pushed across the track out of the way and its driver was able to restart the race. Joseph Paul suffered severe concussion and burns, after leaping out of the cockpit a mass of flame. He had entered the 1938 JCC International Trophy at Brooklands in a ex-Le Mans 4500-V12 Delage, chassis #1000RL1; it was the same works car which appeared during practice sessions of the 1937 French Grand Prix, driven by Henri Frétet, with a berlinette body by Labourdette on Andreau designs. In 1938 it received an open body.
R.I.P
Winner of the race was Percy Maclure in his self-prepared 1.7-litre six-cylinder Riley, from Raymond Mays driving a supercharged ERA.
The race was marred by a very serious accident that resulted in the deaths of two spectators and several others seriously injured. It happened in the early laps, when Frenchman Joseph Paul's Delage caught fire opposite the pits, due to unspent fuel accumulating in a pool in the undershield. The inevitable spark caused flames to burst into the cockpit, and Joseph Paul attempted to get the car to the edge of the track, coming up the new finishing straight, apparently trying to run onto the grass verge without hitting the other cars that were running in close proximity to his Delage. Badly burned and partly gassed, Paul collided with Alfred C. Lace's Talbot-Darracq as it passed him. Both cars were pitched out of track, going up the band and running clean through the confined spectator area to collapse the fence on the other side, involving a group of spectators.
The burning Delage #9 dived down amongst the crowd, injuring ten persons, one of whom, a young woman named Peggy Williams, 23, of Wembley Park, London, was killed upon impact. Amongst the injured people who were taken to hospital, were Noel Pope, Frank Beart, Robert Waddy, Mrs. Jill Thomas and Mrs. K. Petre, W. E. Humphries, Douglas Hawkes, Miss Haig and T. Murray Jamieson, the brilliant twin-cam Austin OHC Racer and ERA supercharger designer. The latter would succumb to his fractured skull three days later at Weybridge Hospital in Weybridge, Surrey, bringing the death roll for the crash up to two.
Lace's Darracq was pushed across the track out of the way and its driver was able to restart the race. Joseph Paul suffered severe concussion and burns, after leaping out of the cockpit a mass of flame. He had entered the 1938 JCC International Trophy at Brooklands in a ex-Le Mans 4500-V12 Delage, chassis #1000RL1; it was the same works car which appeared during practice sessions of the 1937 French Grand Prix, driven by Henri Frétet, with a berlinette body by Labourdette on Andreau designs. In 1938 it received an open body.
R.I.P