Malcolm Campbell

Campbell was born on 11 March 1885 in Chislehurst, Kent, the only son of William Campbell, a Hatton Garden diamond seller. He attended the independent Uppingham School. In Germany, learning the diamond trade, he gained an interest in motorbikes and races. Returning to Britain, he worked for two years at Lloyd's of London for no pay, then for another year at £1 a week.

Between 1906 and 1908, Campbell won all three London to Land's End Trials motorcycle races. In 1910, he began racing cars at Brooklands. He christened his car Blue Bird, painting it blue, after seeing the play The Blue Bird by Maurice Maeterlinck at the Haymarket Theatre.

Campbell married Marjorie Dagmar Knott in 1913, but they divorced two years later.

Campbell then married Dorothy Evelyn Whittall in 1920; their son Donald was born in 1921, and their daughter, Jean, in 1923. Dorothy, who became Lady Campbell when he was knighted in 1931, later described him as "quite unfitted for the role of husband and family man". They divorced in 1940.

Campbell married Betty Nicory in 1945 in Chelsea.

Campbell wrote a number of "motoring mystery" novels including Salute to the Gods which was the source material for the 1939 motion picture Burn 'Em Up O'Connor. In 1935, for the Ford Motor Company, he narrated the short film, Your Driving Test, which provided advice to prospective drivers on how to pass the new driving test that had been introduced in the UK that year.

Campbell competed in Grand Prix motor racing, winning the 1927 and 1928 Grand Prix de Boulogne in France driving a Bugatti T37A.

Campbell stood for Parliament without success at the 1935 general election in Deptford for the Conservative Party, despite his links to the British Union of Fascists. Reportedly, he once adorned his car with a Fascist pennant of the London Volunteer Transport Service, though there has been no photographic evidence to support this claim.