Irrepressible Kentucky Princess

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We recently received a message from Mr. George Davidson enclosing the above picture and explaining that the lady posing beside the car is Henrietta Bingham who is the subject of a recently published book entitled 'Irrepressible: The Jazz Age of Henrietta Bingham' written by her great-neice Emily Bingham. Henrietta, aged 12, witnessed her mother's death when her Uncle drove their car into the path of a train. Bizarrely, her father was on that same fatal train, oblivious.

The one thing her father needed as much as his daughter's love was money and he married an old flame who had married into oil wealth and President Roosevelt made him the American ambassador to Britain. Henrietta had already left America after leaving college with her 'onyx eyed' composition teacher Mina Kirstein Curtiss and they toured Europe together as lovers. Henrietta was welcomed open-armed by London's Bloomsbury Group. She had ripped through America's jazz age like a character from F. Scott Fitgerald and now she set about seducing 1920s London, mixing “deliciously unfamiliar cocktails” for the British guests and singing “Waterboy,” an earthy “chain-gang tune”, in a performance that “violated cultural, racial and sexual boundaries.” This picture shows her with Bloomsbury sculptor Stephen Tomlin, to whom she was putatively engaged, and who wrote that receiving any letter from her “let loose the dogs of longing at my vitals”.

As we begin to build a picture of this wild woman, we learn that her father bought her a Speed Six Bentley - the Bentley records stating 'our own body order' which suggests a combined effort between Bentley and Mulliner. An impressive drophead drophead coupé style known fully as a 'folding head Sportsman's coupé. The car is now owned by Sir Michael Kadoorie of Hong Kong and was the subject of a good article in May 1994 Classic and Sportscar when editor Mick Walsh drove it.

We thank George for introducing us to the irrepressible Miss Bingham and encouraging us to uncover a little of her life. We did not immediately recognise the LHD car in the opening picture, but we feel sure one of our readers will.

(ed.  The prompt reader response identifies the car as a C1925 Franklin Series ll Sport Runabout.)

(Text Robin Batchelor, pictures courtesy George Davidson and archives)

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