LOOKING BACK
by Roger Guttridge
Dorset’s first woman driver
She was Dorset’s first woman driver, and she documented her motoring adventures in a diary written almost 120 years ago. Roger Guttridge shares the story of Mary Farquharson. Puncture repairs during the journey to Dublin
The diary – hand-written ‘I believe she was not only the and unpublished – describes first woman driver in Dorset the eventful travels of Mary but in the south of England and Farquharson, wife of village possibly the whole country,’ her squire Henry, of Eastbury House, son, Peter, told me in 1991, when Tarrant Gunville. he was 80. During her first year on the road in 1902-03, her 10-horsepower A wedding in Oxford Panhard-Levassor took the Mary’s first diary entry on July 1, ambitious motorist as far afield 1902, describes a trip to Oxford as Oxford, London, Lincoln and for a wedding the following day. Dublin. ‘Marcia and I were “...five men But it was never ready to start at 10 arrived and plain-sailing. o’clock,’ she writes. lowered the car ‘We waited an hour Punctures and down the hill on a and then found out breakdowns punctuated every rope... we having the pump would not trip and Mary’s been five hours work, so Black was mechanic, whom wired for. doing 10 miles” ‘We eventually she refers to only as ‘Black’, was required started at 2 o’clock to follow on his motorbike to and met Black on his bicycle. We deal with any problems. then stopped for the pump to be 18
done.’ The travellers resumed their journey only to hit trouble again as they approached Melbury Abbas: their brakes weren’t working. Wisely, they decided not to proceed down the steep hill into the village and sent to Shaftesbury for help. Two hours later, five men arrived and lowered the car down the hill on a rope. Mary writes: ‘We went on to Shaftesbury and stopped one hour there while the brakes were seen to. It was 7 o’clock when we left there, we having been five hours doing 10 miles.’ At Salisbury the 1901 Panhard had a puncture and the novelty of a car undergoing roadside repairs attracted a crowd of
get in touch with Roger: roger.guttridge@btinternet.com
