Leacroft, Cowell, Egham: A Woman In A Man’s World
Listen to Peer Productions’ pilot podcast about forgotten woman Roberta Cowell. Recorded live in December 2017 at the Studio Theatre, South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell:.
Even before World War II, the young Robert Cowell, had a passion for aircraft, motor racing and engineering. Cowell had competed at Brooklands racetrack and in many hill climbs, and in 1936, won a Lands End Trial at the age of 18. The war over, discharged from the RAF, married with two daughters and living in Hove, Cowell was keen to turn a motoring hobby into a full time job. After a short period in 1945 as a director of Continental Cars, a dealer in exotic sports cars in Chobham, Cowell met fellow director and skilled engineer, Pat Whittet. They formed the short-lived Cowell, Whittet & Co at Lightwater to tune and develop both racing and road cars.
Cowell & Watson
However, by mid-1946 Cowell had moved on, joining forces with Gordon Watson to form Cowell & Watson Ltd, based at Cowell’s new home address in Camberley. Watson was another young motor racing fanatic, but with one crucial difference; he came from a moneyed family and was able to fund their joint ambitions. As motor racing gradually restarted in Britain and across Europe, the Cowell and Watson workshop was soon busy, preparing cars for others as well as their own English Racing Automobiles and Altas to race in Formula 2 and Grand Prix events across the UK and Europe, such as the Brighton Speed Trials and the French, Swiss and Dutch Grand Prix. Cowell also had ambitions as a racing car constructor and Grand Prix plans, however, these eventually came to nothing.
Leacroft enters the frame
Meanwhile on the other side of Staines Bridge, Bill Shaw, an experienced panel beater, had founded Leacroft Forge Sheet Metal Works Ltd in 1945. Whether its factory was actually in the Leacroft area of Staines close to the rail station or at the company’s registered address in Laleham Road is not yet known. Clearly short of space, by late 1946 Leacroft had moved over the bridge to Egham to the former stable yard behind Grange Road. And here the futures of the two companies converged. Though Leacroft may have already rebodied one or more of Cowell and Watson’s Altas, it was probably in late 1946/early 1947 that the company bodied its first known car. It was a pre-war BMW 328 with a streamlined body for RAF Squadron Leader “Dickie” Stoop, a racing acquaintance of Cowell. Probably almost simultaneously, in early 1947 Leacroft built their second confirmed body; a two seater sports racing car on a shortened Lea-Francis chassis to the order of Cowell & Watson Ltd.
This body is significant for its frame, made of lightweight metal tubes instead of the heavier wood which had been the custom since the first days of the motorcar. Copying Italian practice from the mid- to late 1930s to reduce weight and strengthen bodywork, the Leacroft Lea-Francis is the first known completed British car to use the superleggera (super-light) principle and was thus influential in the development of British racing cars until the adoption of monocoque (chassis-less) construction 10-15 years later. All known subsequent Leacroft bodies incorporated this tubular frame clad in aluminium panels. The 1947 Lea-Francis was intended as the first of a team of five, but only one further car was built in around 1950.
Leacroft at its peak
By 1947, Robert Cowell and family had moved to Englefield Green and in the same year Cowell and Watson are believed to have bought Leacroft Forge Sheet Metal Works Ltd, possibly using a newly formed company, Leacroft of Egham, for that purpose.
The Cowell & Watson offices were moved into former shop premises on the corner of Queens Road, Egham, immediately adjacent to the workshops in the old stable yard, now busy both with racing preparation and body building, including work on a powerful Lagonda V12, one of the two which had raced at Le Mans in 1939, and which had been bought by Cowell, probably in late 1946.
1948 saw major change. In the spring, Cowell separated from wife Diana, and began gender reassignment, perhaps also leaving Leacroft, as a new company, R. M. Cowell Ltd, was known to have been formed during that year. Cowell is believed to have also owned a construction company and a dressmaking company. Despite these upheavals, work continued in the stable yard; both Cowell and Watson continued to race, while Leacroft’s coachbuilding grew apace. A surviving Morgan emerged from the workshop while the company gained small contracts from the local nexus of racing car specialists, such as Altas and HWMs for Hersham and Walton Motors (still in existence by Walton Bridge) and roadgoing Connaughts for the racing company which had emerged from Continental Cars, which moved to Send in 1949.
The later years
After Cowell’s presumed departure the story of Leacroft is somewhat hazy, with only the occasional advertisement and cars which they are known to have bodied. Gordon Watson is known to have continued racing until 1952, while in 1949 Leacroft built an unusual Lagonda for an Italian restaurateur but were also selling off surplus stocks (and a 1920s De Dion Bouton, of all things). There was also one minimally bodied “spiv” Healey designed to sell at £995 before tax and thus beat the £1,000 rate from which double purchase tax was levied in that era. In 1950 a new name enters the frame, together with a further twist in the Leacroft tale. Four of the sporting Jowett Jupiter chassis appeared with similar body designs, one definitely by Leacroft, but the other three attributed to Coachcraft – and at least one former employee stated that “Leacroft and Coachcraft were the same company”! In November 1951 “Motor Sport” magazine mentioned a 3-wheeler under construction and a 1952 advert in “Motor” saw Leacroft dealing in second hand cars. Around 1953 a long term Egham resident recalls seeing Ford Consul saloons being converted into estate cars at the works, but that was
Leacroft’s final gambit.
Ironically, it was at this time that Leacroft achieved its highest volume “production” – but only at second hand. Using the new wonder material, fibreglass, Major Dick Shattock, owner of RGS-Atalanta, took a mould from one of Leacroft’s bodies for HWM and in the next few years made up to 100 fibreglass copies, some as the original roadster, some with a roof. There’s no record of Leacroft receiving a royalty… By 1954 the Leacroft saga was at an end. Gordon Watson’s mother is reputed to have lost patience with her son’s dilettante motoring ventures and to have withdrawn financing. Leacroft of Egham was defunct, being finally wound up ten years later, in July 1964. Yet 1954 did not see the end of coachbuilding in Egham. Coachcraft of Egham continued under different ownership at nearby Rusham Road until at least 1970.
Where was Leacroft in Egham?
Though Leacroft’s postal address was listed as Grange Road, the actual workshop was off Grange Road, on an enclosed yard between what was then the end of Stoneylands Road and Queen’s Road, with vehicle access from Stoneylands Road. The yard is believed formerly to have been used as stabling, possibly for one of the local farms.
The offices of Cowell and Watson/Leacroft occupied a former shop on the corner of Queen’s Road, while the race preparation and coachbuilding took place in the long building on the south side of the yard, backing onto the path from Queen’s Road to Stoneylands Road. Windows faced out onto the path and into the yard, flooding the workshop with the natural light desirable for the coachbuilders. A separate building for spray painting was later built in the open eastern half of the yard by Stoneylands Road. The Leacroft workshop shared the western end of the yard with a brick built house and four or five small homes which dated from before WWII and are said, by long standing residents of Queen’s Road, to have resembled what was known in that era as “prefabs”.
Once Leacroft/Coachcraft had finally closed, the works was taken over and expanded by the Hilton family, which ran a sheet metalworking company and for which the office block on the SW corner of the site by
Queen’s Road may have been built. Locally the site was still known as “the Leacroft works”. The eastern end of the site was later occupied by a new building for Donland Engineering, while industrial units replaced the old stables along the southern wall.
A woman in a man’s world
Born Robert Cowell in East Croydon on 8th April 1918, Cowell was known as a World War II fighter pilot, a racing driver, a criminal, a business owner and the first person to undergo male-to-female gender reassignment surgery in the Britain.
Before becoming a pilot, Cowell had a keen interest in cars, racing frequently and studying Engineering at University College London. It was at University that Cowell met Diana Margaret Zelma Carpenter and the pair got married in May 1941, shortly before the then Captain Robert Cowell was deployed. It took many attempts for Cowell to be accepted into the RAF after initially being dismissed for having severe motion sickness. In her autobiography, Cowell describes several near misses during the war, including one occasion when she was seized by German troops and held as a prisoner of war.
Cowell and family moved to Englefield Green in 1947 so she could be near to her new business, Leacroft of Egham. In her memoir, Cowell describes being noticed in a local Egham hairdresser’s and someone commenting, “If it isn’t Flight Lieutenant Cowell! Last time I saw you there was a warrant out for your arrest.” The warrant had just been a misunderstanding, but it caused local people to be nervous of her for weeks after.
Restlessness and realisation
In 1948, Cowell’s marriage broke down. In her autobiography she describes a feeling of restlessness during this time.
“Afterwards I was made to realise clearly that what was actually happening in this period was an attempt to compensate for the fact that I knew, deep down inside me, that I had a feminine nature. Outwardly I made frantic efforts to show the world at large how masculine and assertive I could be.”
Cowell spent three years prior to the break up undergoing psycho-analysis and eventually went to see a Harley Street sexologist who identified a number of feminine characteristics. She had no Adam’s apple, wide hips and narrow shoulders.
The beginning of change
At this time, Cowell met Michael Dillon who was a physician. Dillon had been the first British female-to-male transsexual to undergo phalloplastic surgery. In 1948 Dillon carried out an operation on Cowell to remove her testicles, which was illegal. This then allowed Cowell to be certified as intersex which started the process of her transition. Cowell also underwent hormone treatment, which was (and still can be) extremely expensive.
“The initial treatment was intended to implement the natural flow of female hormones in my body. The fact that I already had an abnormal supply of female hormones had been shown by biological tests, and also by the fact that I had many female secondary characteristics in my body.”
“The first externally noticeable effect, which occurred after a few weeks, was very striking. I suddenly discovered that, almost overnight, I had acquired a very good complexion. Previously the texture of my skin had resembled that of an old, rather weather-beaten orange. Now it was very much improved indeed remarkably so. It appeared almost like that of a child.”
Cowell began to find it harder and harder to live as man. This period is documented in her autobiography.
“In the chemist’s shop one day I wanted to buy a pair of rubber gloves. The chemist said, “Sorry, madam, there are only men’s sizes left.” When I approached a paper and magazine seller in Sloane Square he said, “What do you want, Woman’s Own, I suppose?” As a matter of fact I had intended to buy Vogue, but I hastily changed my mind and bought The Aeroplane instead!”
Transition
By this point Cowell’s engineering interests had already been “disposed of” and eventually she made the decision to have surgery to complete her transition. This surgery was completed by pioneering plastic
surgeon, Sir Harold Gillies, who had worked on new types of plastic surgery during the war. On 15th May 1951, he completed Cowell’s vaginoplasty.
“The door behind me clicked, and in came the man on whom my hopes for the future rested. He was kindness itself. I was completely at ease in a moment.”
This operation marked the end of Cowell living as a man. She adopted the name Betty and lived the rest of her life in private, surrounded by few friends. She lived for many years with her companion Lisa, who she had met during her transition.
“After this operation I began at once to end all activities which had to be carried out in trousers, as it was becoming almost impossible to pose as a man. I felt that I was now truly a complete female, and masquerading as a male was repugnant to me.”
This enabled her birth certificate to be officially altered. In the margin it reads: “In the 167 column 2 for ‘Robert’ read ‘Roberta Elizabeth’ and column 3 for ‘Boy’ read ‘Girl’. Corrected on the 17th May 1951…”
Final years
After selling her story to Picture Post and publishing her autobiography in 1954, she withdrew from the spotlight. She did not see her children after her divorce and died alone in a sheltered housing complex in
West London on 11th October 2011. On Cowell’s instructions there was no publicity. Her obituary wasn’t published until 2 years later, and her daughters Anne and Diana did not know anything of her death until
they were contacted by The Independent.
The Egham Museum Trust would like to express their thanks to the following people for their help with this exhibition:
Charlotte Edmondson and Royal Holloway University of London’s LGBT Society
April Bates
Ivan Fear
Roy Padgett
Damien Romano
Amy Stone
Joy Whitfield
‘Roberta Cowell’s Story: an autobiography’