Dorothy Levitt was Britain's first female racing driver. Acclaimed as the "fastest girl on earth", she won countless races, set speed records on land and on water and she defied her critics in a male-dominated sports world.
Levitt was born Dorothy Elizabeth Levi in Hackney, London on 5th January 1882 to Sephardi Jews Jacob Levi and his wife Julia. She had a younger sister named Elsie. Her other sister, Lilly, lived from 1878 to 1879. It was around 1901 that the Levi's anglicised their surname to Levitt.
In 1902, Dorothy was employed in a temporary secretarial role at the engineering firm Napier & Sons in the capital. The owner, Montague Napier, was interested in the new sport of motor racing. He worked with the businessman and racing driver Selwyn Edge on the design and development of a race car that he started to manufacture under the Napier brand name in 1899.
Selwyn Edge Inspired By French Racing Driver Camille du Gast
Selwyn Edge drove cars for Napier in races, and he won the 1902 Gordon Bennett Cup on the European mainland. Edge noticed that the presence of the celebrated French female motorist Camille du Gast at the event helped to draw the crowds, and he discovered that she improved French car sales. Back in Britain, he appointed Dorothy as his personal assistant. He proposed that she become the British Camille du Gast.
This may have been a moment of empowerment for women in a predominantly male driving world, but it has also been speculated that, by placing a female at the wheel, the message that even a woman can drive this car was projected. This made the vehicle more attractive to male buyers. (It didn't hurt that Dorothy was aesthetically pleasing).
The public, in its mind's eye, no doubt figures this motor champion as a big, strapping Amazon. Dorothy Levitt is exactly, or almost so, the direct opposite of such a picture. She is the most girlish of womanly women.
— Editor, C. Byng-Hall
Dorothy Levitt's Training and Teaching Skills
Selwyn Edge asked Leslie Callingham, a Napier's salesmen, to spend his day off teaching Dorothy how to drive a car. He obliged, but he resented being told to teach a mere woman.
Edge arranged for Dorothy to train in Paris; she spent six months learning how to build and drive cars at a leading French automobile company. She was schooled in mechanics; if a problem occurred during a race, she could perform the necessary repairs. He also furnished her with the cars that she needed to race. Rumours that she was his lover emerged.
A rarity in the motoring world, Levitt taught Queen Alexandra, the wife of King Edward VII, and their daughters Princesses Louise, Maud and Victoria how to drive. American tourists and aristocratic females also received the benefit of her expertise.
"...[there might] be pleasure in being whisked around the country by your friends and relatives...but the real intense pleasure only comes when you drive your own car."
— Dorothy Levitt, The Woman and the Car: A chatty little handbook for all women..., 1905.
Professional Motorsports Events
Levitt's first professional race occurred in April 1903. She drove a Gladiator, a French motor car. She didn't make the podium, but she was the first British female to participate in a motor race.
A May race between London and Glasgow brought a marked improvement on her April race performance, but at a July event, her car wouldn't start and she was forced to withdraw.
Edge entered her into the Southport Speed Trials, and she easily won in her class (cars priced £400-£500). Spectators were amazed that a female, a secretary, could perform so well in a male-dominated environment. Some of them thought that she should have been finding herself a husband and creating a family instead of driving like a man.
Camille du Gast and her few contemporaries were regarded as masculine in outlook and temperament. They dressed in utilitarian clothing to fit in, and they were often mistaken for men. Dorothy discarded the masculine image by wearing a dust coat over her feminine clothing, a hat and a veil.
The Rear View Mirror Idea
She socialised with the elite and wrote a book. She had a column in The Graphic in which she advocated women's right to drive. She gave helpful hints, including how to use a hand mirror to check on the traffic behind the vehicle (a rear view mirror was finally adopted as a legal requirement in 1914). She also explained how car parts functioned.
Not all publicity was good. On 6th November 1903, Dorothy did not attend court to answer charges of driving at excessive speeds or claims that, when she was stopped by the police, she expressed a wish to mow down the policemen. There was a particular sergeant who she allegedly would have liked to kill. She was fined £5 by the magistrate, and she paid the case costs.
In September 1904, Levitt drove solo in a French De Dion car at the Hereford 1000 Mile Light Car Trial. Mechanical difficulties on the last of five days on the road cost her the victory. The following month, she won again at the Southport Speed Trials.
I am constantly asked by some astonished people "Do you really understand all the horrid machinery of a motor, and could you mend it if it broke down? ... the details of an engine may sound complicated and look "horrid", but an engine is easily mastered.
— Dorothy Levitt.
The "Fastest Girl On Earth" Banned From Brooklands
Levitt achieved the longest drive by a female in February 1905. Averaging a speed of 20 miles per hour, she drove from London to Liverpool and back to London within two days. She was accompanied by an official observer and her beloved dog Dodo.
In July 1905, she set the first ever Ladies World Speed Record in Brighton when she recorded a speed of 79.75 miles per hour. She broke this record in Blackpool the following year by achieving a speed of 90.88 miles per hour.
She was acclaimed as the "fastest girl on Earth," and she was the star feature in the Penny Illustrated Paper's The Sensational Adventures of Miss Dorothy Levitt, – Champion Lady Motorist of the World in November 1906.
In 1907, the officials at the newly constructed Brooklands race track in Surrey refused to allow Levitt to compete because she wasn't male; the following year they relented.
She raced at numerous events in mainland Europe with great success, and she added to her haul of trophies in Britain. Between races, she wrote articles and "chatty" books advocating the freedom of driving and advising women to take to the roads.
Speed Records
Dorothy did not limit her racing career to land races. She won the inaugural Harmsworth Trophy in Cork Harbour, Ireland, steering a Napier motorboat. She set the first water speed record, and she triumphed during the prestigious Cowes Week in 1903. King Edward VII invited her onto the royal yacht so that he could congratulate her.
In French waters, she won the Gaston Menier Cup. The French government was so impressed by her Napier-designed craft that they paid £1000 for it.
In 1909, Dorothy trained as a pilot. There is no record of her qualifying, although she joined the British Aero Club in 1910.
Levitt disappeared from public view in 1910. In common with other early female motor racing drivers, her spectacular rise was followed by a sudden exit from the public arena.
On 17th May 1922, 40-year-old Dorothy was found dead at her home in Marylebone, London. She was suffering from heart disease and measles at the time of her death. Morphine poisoning was suspected as a cause of death. Officially, a death by misadventure was recorded. Her sister Elsie inherited her estate.
Dorothy Levitt lived fast and died young.
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