not the case. There were many and one such was Gwenda Stewart, who was born Gwenda Mary Glubb in Preston, Lancashire on 1 June, 1894. She was born into a military family and her father was Captain Frederic Manley Glubb of the Royal Engineers, later to become Major General Sir Frederic Manley Glubb . Her brother John became famous as Glubb Pasha while serving as the commander of the Arab Legion.


T Wartime


When the First World War broke out in 1914, Gwenda joined the SCottish Women’s Hospitals organisation as a volunteer driver and was sent to the Crimea. The train journey there took several weeks as the passengers had to disembark and chop up wood for the engine every 20 miles or so. Once there she drove ambulances under difficult and dangerous conditions. She was involved in what became known as the Dobruja retreat. This happened in the autumn of 1916 when the hitherto successful Romanian army got pushed back. The ladies of the Scottish hospital contingent were awarded the Crosses of St George and St Stanislav by the Romanian Government. Gwenda was also mentioned in dispatches probably because she was seen carrying out repairs to her ambulance while under fire. By 1918, she must have been attached to a flying unit because on 1 April when the RAF was formed, she became an Assistant Administrator in the Women’s Royal Air Force (WRAF). Fifteen months later on 1 July, 1919 she became its Deputy Administrator. Unfortunately, while she was at the Air Ministry (AM) the WRAF’s administration was in turmoil and she got involved in this in a very personal way. The WRAF’s original Commandant was intended to be Lady Gertrude Crawford, but on the 4 April Sir Geoffrey Paine, the AM’s Master General of Personnel, informed the Air Council that the lady ‘lacked the qualities necessary for organising a large body of women’. The lady seems to have


In January 1913, aged 19, Gwenda started as a student at St Hilda’s Hall, Cheltenham, which was a residential college attached to Cheltenham Ladies’ College. While there, she taught herself to drive in a car belonging to the family of a school friend. Her education was ‘finished off’ in Paris and as a result she became a fluent French speaker.


here are few top woman racing drivers in the current era of motorsport. In the golden days of Brooklands this was certainly


accepted this and stood down. The second choice was the Honourable Violet Blanche Douglas-Pennant. However, there were two views in the AM as to what the Commandant’s function was. One view was that it was just a figurehead and the second saw it as a normal command function. Sir Geoffrey assured Violet that it was the latter. Yet she soon faced a series of increasing difficulties both within the AM and outside it. Sir Geoffrey was replaced with Sir Sefton Branker who found the whole business unacceptable and he sacked Violet. That might have been the end of the matter except that Violet had a strong feeling she had been wronged and she had many influential supporters. They managed to raise a House of Lords enquiry into the matter. By now the affair had become a national scandal and was making headlines. During the enquiry, the ex- commandant had been asked to give examples of the problems she had faced. One such example she claimed was the immoral behaviour of some of her officers and the case she cited involved Gwenda. It was said that she and Colonel Janson had conducted an affair in a London lodging house. What follows is almost hilarious. The landlady said she had found Miss Glubb’s hot-water bottle in Colonel Janson’s bed and saw Miss Glubb emerge from his room one morning. Gwenda explained that she had given Janson the hot-water bottle because he was ill with a recurrence of trench fever and had gone into his room in the morning to take his temperature. To remove any suggestion of impropriety, a doctor was called in to settle the matter. He stated: ‘There is no definite physical sign of virginity, but I am of opinion that there has never been penetration of this girl.’ The popular press accepted this explanation and the Evening Standard ran a headline that complained about ‘Cruel and wicked charges’ that put a ‘Girl’s honour at stake.’


Racing and adventure After the war, Gwenda married Colonel Janson on 17 February, 1920. He was then the London Manager of the London Spyker motor company. Perhaps missing the excitement of war, Gwenda decided to take up motorcycle racing and started competing in events at Brooklands. She also offered to undertake long- distance promotional rides for motorcycle manufacturers. In November 1921, SF Edge took up her offer and entered her in ACU (Auto Cycle Union) monitored trials using a Ner-a-Car. The machine she was riding was best described as motorized scooter. It had


SEPTEMBER – OCTOBER 2019 | BROOKLANDS BULLETIN 27


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