John Stuart Hindmarsh

Johnny Hindmarsh at the 1935 24 Hours of Le Mans

John Stuart Hindmarsh (25 November 1907 – 6 September 1938), also known as Johnny Hindmarsh, was an English racecar driver and aviator.

Hindmarsh was educated at Sherborne, Dorset and then attended the Royal Military College. He joined the Royal Army Tank Corps in 1928, then in 1930 learned to fly with the Royal Air Force.

Hindmarsh also raced Talbot and Lagonda cars; he won the Le Mans 24-Hour Race in 1935 in a 4½ litre Lagonda M45R Rapide with Luis Fontés (222 laps; 3006.797 km; average speed 125.283 km/h).

Hindmarsh was killed aged 30 while test flying Hawker Hurricane I L1652 at Brooklands on 6 September 1938; he is thought to have been overcome by carbon monoxide fumes in the cockpit, and the aeroplane then dived almost vertically into the ground and exploded at the foot of St George’s Hill almost opposite the Vickers factory entrance.

Family life

Hindmarsh married the multiple record breaking racing driver Violette Cordery on 15 September 1931 at Stoke D'Abernon parish church, and they had two daughters, one of whom married the racing driver Roy Salvadori. Widowed in 1938, Cordery retired from public life until her death on 30 December 1983 in Oxshott, Surrey.^[1][2]

References

1. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Violette Cordery
2. The Guardian, 6 June 2012, Obituary - Roy Salvadori, by Alan Henry

• John Hindmarsh at Historic Racing