This Day in Automotive History - Roberta Cowell

By Ian Cooper-Smith

Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell is a name largely lost to history, however, she remains a pioneer in motor racing, Women’s history, and LGBTQ+ history. Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell was born Robert Marshall Cowell on April 8, 1918. She later changed her name in 1951 to Roberta Elizabeth Marshall Cowell. Cowell is the first woman known to undergo gender reassignment surgery in Britain, an act that was virtually unheard of at the time. From an early age, she was obsessed with cars and showed a great proclivity for mechanical engineering. After her seventeenth birthday, Cowell drove frequently and immediately started competition work. From 1936 until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, she was occupied by engineering and motor racing. She had previously studied engineering at University College, London, and utilized her education on the track, testing models in races and speed trials. Cowell
worked as a mechanic preparing for the Donington Grand Prix. She additionally competed at Brooklands in Surrey and in the Belgian Grand Prix.

In December 1940, her racing career was abruptly interrupted by the Second World War. Having previously enlisted in the Royal Air Force in 1935, Cowell once again served in the R.A.F. during the war, flying combat, and aerial reconnaissance missions. She first flew unarmed, camera-equipped, Spitfire reconnaissance fighters, then combat missions in a Hawker Typhoon. In November 1944, her Typhoon fighter plane was shot down by ground fire over Germany on a low-level attack near the Rhine River. She safely crash-landed the plane and was taken prisoner by German forces. While imprisoned in the German POW camp, Stalag Luft I, Cowell spent her time creating a new racing design to compete in the Grand Prix. In her words it was a “very advanced design”, the engine was a three-stage supercharged flat twelve-cylinder engine, with Aspin rotary valves. She additionally spent her time teaching classes in automotive engineering to fellow prisoners. After five months in captivity, on May 5th, 1945, Soviet soldiers liberated the POW camp. She and other prisoners of war were returned to their home countries.

After the war, she returned to auto-racing in 1946 and took part in every event she could. She drove a variety of cars, including Alta, E.R.A., Maserato, Lagonda and Delahaye. It was also in this period of her life that she faced one of her most difficult challenges. Cowell underwent years of psychoanalysis, medical examinations, and eventually hormone treatment and surgery to better align her body with her gender identity. She was issued a new birth certificate and was subsequently featured on the cover of Picture Post magazine in March 1954. After her transition, she once again returned to racing in the late 1950s winning the Shelsley Walsh Speed Hill Climb in 1957. Her racing career would, unfortunately, come to a disappointing end. By 1954, her change of legal gender restricted her from competing in Grand Prix motor racing. Additionally, her later life was further marred by financial troubles culminating in her filing for
bankruptcy in 1958. Although she continued racing into the 1970s she soon fell out of public life. She later died on 11 October 2011, she was 93 years old.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/05/obituaries/roberta-cowell-overlooked.html

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