Background and familyHe was born into a wealthy Nottingham family in 1896. He was the son of Sir Thomas Stanley Birkin, 2nd Bt. and Hon. Margaret Diana Hopetoun Chetwynd. In childhood, Henry Birkin gained the nickname "Tim", after the children's comic book character Tiger Tim, created by Julius Stafford Baker, who was extremely popular at the time. The nickname stuck right up to Birkin's death.He married Audrey Clara Lilian Latham, daughter of Sir Thomas Paul Latham, 1st Bt. and Florence Clara Walley, on 12 July 1921. They were divorced in 1928.He and Audrey had two daughters, Pamela and Sara, both of whom married and had issue. The elder daughter Pamela (d. 1983) married two Buxton cousins in succession, and her second husband was the Life Peer Baron Buxton of Alsa, KCVO, MC. She had seven children including wildlife film-maker Cindy Buxton. The younger daughter Sara (d. 1976) married twice, and had two sons by her first husband..At his death, without sons of his own, in 1933, he was succeeded by his next surviving paternal uncle Sir Alexander Russell Birkin, 3rd Baronet (d. 1942).His younger brother, Archie Birkin, was killed during practice for the 1927 Isle of Man TT motorcycle races. Military careerHe joined the Royal Flying Corps during World War I and gained the rank of Lieutenant in the service of the 108th (Norfolk and Suffolk Yeoman) Field Brigade, serving in Palestine where he contracted malaria, a disease from which he would suffer for the rest of his life. Racing careerIn 1921 he turned to motor racing, competing a few races at Brooklands. Business and family pressure then forced him to retire from the tracks until 1927 when he entered a threelitre Bentley for a six hour race. For 1928 he acquired a 4litre car and after some good results decided to return to motor racing, very much against his family's wishes. Soon the little Bentley driver, racing with a blue and white spotted silk scarf around his neck, would be a familiar sigh t on the race tracks driving with the works team (the "Bentley Boys"). In 1928 Birkin entered the Le Mans race again, leading the first twenty laps until a jammed wheel forced him to drop back, finishing fifth.The next year he was back as winner, racing the "Speed Six" as co-driver to Woolf Barnato. If Bentley wanted a more powerful car he developed a bigger model and the Speed Six was a huge car. Ettore Bugatti once referred to the Bentley as "the world's fastest lorry" ("Le camion plus vite du monde").[citation needed] Back in 1928 however, Birkin had come to the conclusion that the future lay in getting more power from a lighter model by fitting a supercharger to the 4 litre Bentley. When Bentley Motors refused to create the supercharged model Birkin sought he determined to develop it himself. With technical help from Clive Gallop and supercharger specialist Amherst Villiers, and with Dorothy Paget financing the project after his own money had run out, Birkin rebuilt the car at the engineering works he had set up for the purpose at Welwyn Garden City in Hertfordshire. Adding a huge Roots-type supercharger ("blower") in front of the radiator driven straight from the crankshaft gave the car a unique appearance. The 242bhp "blower Bentley" was born.The blower Bentley first appeared at the Essex six hour race at Brooklands on 29 June 1929. However, the car initially proved to be very unreliable. W.O. Bentley himself had never accepted the blower Bentley. He said that supercharging a Bentley was "to pervert the design and corrupt the performance".[citation needed] Nevertheless, with Wolf Barnato's support, Birkin persuaded "W.O." to produce the fifty supercharged cars necessary for the model to be accepted for the Le Mans twenty four hour race. In addition to these production cars built by Bentley Motors, Birkin put together a racing team of four remodelled "prototypes" (three road cars for Le Mans and a track car for Brooklands) and assembled a fifth car from spare parts. Birkin's blower Bentleys were too late for Le Mans in 1929 and only two of the cars reached the start line in 1930. After an epic duel between Dudley Benjafield and Birkin's privately entered blower Bentleys and Rudolf Caracciola's Mercedes SSK all three retired, leaving the victory to the Bentley works team Speed Six of Barnato and Glen Kidston. Birkin's courage and fearless driving, in particular his selflessly harrying Caracciola into submission, are regarded as embodying the true spirit of the Vintage Racing era.Back in 1925 the energetic motor sports enthusiast Eugne Azemar, who was involved with the Tourist Board in Saint-Gaudens in southern France, succeeded in persuading the Automobile Club du Midi to arrange a Grand Prix race in the region. A great success, the Saint-Gaudens track later got the honor of hosting the 1928 French Grand Prix. If they can, so can we, thought the city council in the nearby town of Pau and decided to try to take the French Grand Prix to their own town. Pau actually had some Grand Prix traditions, as the town held the honour of arranging the first race ever to be called a Grand Prix back in 1901. For the 1930 Grand Prix a triangular, Le Mans-type track outside the city was selected. Known as the Circuit de Morlaas it should not be confused with the well-known street track in the Parque Beaumont. The French had hoped to run the race to the International Formula, but when the response was poor the event was postponed and changed to a Formula Libre event instead. The new date meant that the Italian teams were unable to attend, leaving it to be mostly an internal French affair with sixteen Bugattis, two Peugeots and a Delage among the twenty five starters. Among the top Bugatti drivers were Louis Chiron, Marcel Lehoux, Count Stanislas Czaikowski, Jean-Pierre Wimille, Philippe tancelin and William Grover-Williams.A curiosity in the largely single-seat entry list was Tim Birkin's blower B entley touring car, stripped down to racing trim, with headlights and mudguards removed. The race distance was twenty five laps of the 15.8 km track, making a total of 396 km. Guy Bouriat took an early lead, followed by Williams, Zanelli, Czaikowski and tancelin, with Birkin as first non-Bugatti driver, in sixth place. Williams in a works Bugatti then became the next leader. Czaikowski fell back through the field and Bouriat in the other works Bugatti made a pitstop giving over the car to Chiron. Then Williams also had to make a stop for a new wheel. That all made way for tancelin to advance and he was followed by Birkin, the track with its long straights suiting the supercharged Bentley perfectly.At one-third distance Chiron led, followed by tancelin, Williams and Birkin. Birkin's fourth place became a third as Williams got engine troubles but then Zanelli, who had made an early stop, came rushing through the field pushing Birkin back to fourth. At lap ten "Sabipa" crashed and was thrown out of his Bugatti, Birkin only avoiding the injured driver by the slightest of margins. After eleven laps Chiron encountered problems with oil pressure and tancelin took over the lead. Soon Chiron was also passed by Zanelli and Birkin. The Bentley driver used the horn to warn the Bugatti to move over, surely a unique occurrence in Grand Prix racing! With seven laps to go Zanelli made another pitstop and Birkin was up into second place. While tancelin, with a 2.5 minute lead, nursed his Bugatti home to take victory, Zanelli had not given up and was catching Birkin fast. At the flag the margin was down to fourteen seconds but it was enough for the British Bentley driver to make Grand Prix history. DeathBirkin's world fell to pieces at the end of 1930. Bentley Motors withdrew from racing and closed down the following year. (Although purchased by Rolls Royce the marque did not reappear for several years.) And Dorothy Paget withdrew her support for Birkin's road t eam in October 1930. She continued however to support Birkin's red single seater track car (the Brooklands Battleship)and Birkin kept his motor workshop going by entering into a partnership with Mike Couper and developing a business specialising in tuning high performance cars. In addition, an "electric model Brooklands" -- an elaborate miniature racetrack game with motorized cars running on single rails -- was manufactured at the works. Birkin's partnership with Couper came to an end in 1932 however and the works closed.Birkin continued racing despite these setbacks. In 1931 he won Le Mans with Earl Howe in an Alfa Romeo, even receiving a telegram from Mussolini congratulating him on his "win for Italy". On the 24th March 1932 he raised the Brooklands Outer Circuit lap record to 137.96 mph in the Brooklands Battleship, a record which stood for another two years before being beaten by John Cobb driving the 24 litre Napier Railton. On 7 May 1933 he started the Tripoli Grand P rix in a new 3L Maserati 8C owned by fellow driver Bernard Rubin, finishing third. During his pit stop Birkin burnt his arm badly against the hot exhaust pipe while picking up a cigarette lighter. There are different opinions of what then happened. The traditional view is that the wound turned septic. Others say Birkin suffered from a malaria attack. Probably it was a combination of both that proved fatal, as Birkin died at Countess Carnavon Nursing Home in London 22 June 1933. TriviaSir Henry's life was portrayed in the 1995 TV drama Full Throttle with comedian Rowan Atkinson in the role of Sir Henry ("Tim") Birkin.There is a tuned version of the Bentley Continental GT built by German aftermarket tuner MTM called the MTM Bentley Birkin Edition named in honor of Sir Henry, the car produces either 632 hp or 641 hp depending on the trim ordered by the buyer.In 2000 Bentley produced an Arnage in limited numbers called "The Birkin Arnage" Further readingHenry Ralph Stanley Birki n - Full throttle: Sir Henry ("Tim") Birkin (London: G.T. Foulis & Co. Ltd., 1948) Complete European Championship results(key) (Races in bold indicate pole position)YearEntrantMake123EDCPoints1931Private entryMaseratiITAFRA4BEL416=16 References^ thePeerage.com - Person Page 5051^ Full Throttle at the Internet Movie Database8w.forix.comThe PeerageAutosport 22 June 2006 p142The Brooklands SocietyGerman tuner makes maddest Bentley from evo magazine.PrecededbyWoolf BarnatoBernard RubinWinner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans1929 with:Woolf BarnatoSucceededbyWoolf BarnatoGlen KidstonPrecededbyWoolf BarnatoGlen KidstonWinner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans1931 with:Earl HoweSucceededbyRaymond SommerLuigi ChinettiBaronetage of the United KingdomPrecededbyThomas BirkinBaronet(of Ruddington Grange)19311933SucceededbyAlexander Birkinvde24 Hours of Le Mans winnersEight-timeTom KristensenSix-timeJacky IckxFive-timeDerek Bell Frank Biela Emanuele PirroFour-timeYannick Dalmas Olivier Gendebien Henri PescaroloThree-timeWoolf Barnato Rinaldo Capello Luigi Chinetti Hurley Haywood Phil Hill Al Holbert Klaus Ludwig Marco WernerTwo-timeHenry Birkin Ivor Bueb Ron Flockhart Jean-Pierre Jaussaud Grard Larrousse JJ Lehto Allan McNish Manuel Reuter Andr Rossignol Raymond Sommer Hans-Joachim Stuck Gijs van Lennep Jean-Pierre Wimille Alexander WurzOne-timeAello Alboreto Amon Ara Attwood Baldi Bandini Barilla Barth Benjafield Benoist Bianchi Bloch Blundell Bouchut D. Brabham G. Brabham Brundle Chaboud Clement Cobb Davis de Courcelles Dickens Duff Dumfries tancelin Fonts Foyt Frre Gachot Gen Gonzlez Gregory Guichet Gurney Hamilton Hawthorn Hlary Herbert Herrmann G. Hill Hindmarsh Howe Johansson Jones Kidston Krages Lagache Lammers Lang Lonard Marko Martini Mass McLaren Mitchell-Thomson Nielsen Nuvolari Oliver Ortelli Pironi Riess Rindt Rodrguez Rolt Rondeau J. Rosier L. Rosier Rubin Salvadori Sanderson Scarfiotti Schuppan Sekiya Shelby Smith Trmoulet Trintignant Vaccarella Veyron Walk er Wallace Warwick Weidler Whitehead B. Whittington D. Whittington Winkelhock Categories: 1896 births | 1933 deaths | British Army personnel of World War I | Sherwood Foresters officers | Brooklands people | Bentley Boys | English racecar drivers | BRDC Gold Star winners | Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom | 24 Hours of Le Mans driversHidden categories: All articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced statements from February 2007
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