{{Short description|Pioneering motorist and mechanic}} {{Infobox person | honorific_prefix = Honourable | name = Gabrielle Borthwick | honorific_suffix = | image = Hon._Gabrielle_Margaret_Ariana_Borthwick.jpg | image_size = | alt = | caption = | native_name = | native_name_lang = | birth_name = Gabrielle Margaret Ariana Borthwick | birth_date = 30 June 1866 | birth_place = London | death_date = {{death date and age text|10 October 1952|30 June 1866}} | death_place = Broadbridge Heath, Sussex | education = | alma_mater = | known_for = Motorist and mechanic | notable_works = }}
'''Gabrielle Borthwick''' (30 June 1866 {{ndash}} 10 October 1952) was a pioneering motorist and mechanic. She was one of the early wealthy women motorists to set up a garage and a school for teaching men and women to drive cars. She was chairman of the executive committee for the ''Women’s Automobile and Sports Association'' which was associated with the Royal Automobile Club.<ref name="The IET - WES Vol 1">{{cite web|title=The Woman Engineer Vol 1|url=https://www2.theiet.org/resources/library/archives/research/wes/WES_Vol_1.html|last=|first=|date=|website=The IET|access-date=2020-06-01}}</ref><ref name="The IET WES Vol 3">{{cite web|title=The Woman Engineer Vol 3|url=https://www2.theiet.org/resources/library/archives/research/wes/WES_Vol_3a.html|last=|first=|date=|website=The IET|access-date=2020-06-01}}</ref>
==Early life== Hon. Gabrielle Margaret Ariana Borthwick was born on 30 June 1866. She was the eldest daughter of Alice Day and the 19th Lord Borthwick, Cunninghame Borthwick. As a young woman, she had been presented at court but never went on to marry. Borthwick spent time in Florence where it was rumored that she had had a lesbian affair.{{citation needed|date=July 2022}}
== Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn == Borthwick was initiated<ref>{{Cite web |last=Davis |first=Sally |title=Gabrielle Borthwick |url=http://www.wrightanddavis.co.uk/GD/BORTHWICKGMA.htm |access-date=1 July 2022 |website=HERMETIC ORDER OF THE GOLDEN DAWN}}</ref> as a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in July 1891.<ref>{{cite book |last=Cockin |first=Katharine |year=2017 |title=Edith Craig and the Theatres of Art |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1472570611}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite web |last=Harris-Gardiner |first=Rachel |date=2022-03-20 |title=Gabrielle's garage |url=https://medium.com/@rachel.bichener/gabrielles-garage-ee63b922c8a9 |access-date=2022-03-22 |website=Medium |language=en}}</ref>
== Career == By 1914, Borthwick was involved with establishing Women's unions, including the Society of Women Motor Drivers, an idea which had come from the women's suffrage movement. In 1915, she placed an advertisement for ''The Ladies’ Automobile Workshops'' in the ''Church League for Women’s Suffrage'' paper promising “Ladies trained by ladies. All branches of motoring taught" for her Mayfair garage.<ref name=":0" />
During the First World War Borthwick provided training for men who needed to know how to drive and maintain cars, as well as to women who became drivers in various roles such as ambulance drivers in France and Serbia. This was later described as “splendid work during the war in teaching hundreds of girls the mechanism and driving of cars”.<ref name=":0" /> Her garage, the ''Borthwick's Ladies' Automobile Workshops'' in Brick Street in Picadilly, London was an RAC agent into the 1920s.<ref name="Clarsen 2008 p. 39">{{cite book | last=Clarsen | first=G. | title=Eat My Dust: Early Women Motorists | publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press | series=The Johns Hopkins University Studies in Historical and Political Science | year=2008 | isbn=978-1-4214-0514-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bbuOiq0YEKYC&pg=PA39 | access-date=2020-05-31 | page=39}}</ref><ref name="The Times 2015">{{cite web | title=Demand for women drivers | website=The Times | date=2015-12-10 | url=https://www.thetimes.com/travel/advice/demand-for-women-drivers-nt06kc3h2hs | access-date=2020-05-31}}</ref><ref name="The Times 2016">{{cite web | title=Motorists in naval uniform | website=The Times | date=2016-01-18 | url=https://www.thetimes.com/article/motorists-in-naval-uniform-5wjr06x053z | access-date=2020-05-31}}</ref><ref name="Cockin 2017 p. 316">{{cite book | last=Cockin | first=K. | title=Edith Craig and the Theatres of Art | publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-4725-7063-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EMTiDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT316 | access-date=2020-05-31 | page=316}}</ref><ref name="women engineers history">{{cite web | title=Miss Benest and Miss Griff – one woman, several names, many talents. Part 2 of a strange tale. – women engineers' history | website=women engineers' history – Histories of Women Working in Engineering and Construction in the UK | date=2019-02-19 | url=https://womenengineerssite.wordpress.com/2019/02/19/miss-benest-and-miss-griff-one-woman-several-names-many-talents-part-2-of-a-strange-tale/ | access-date=2020-05-31}}</ref><ref name="Dann 2017 p. 362">{{cite book | last=Dann | first=J. | title=Maud Coleno's Daughter: The Life of Dorothy Hartman, 1898-1957 | publisher=Troubador Publishing Limited | year=2017 | isbn=978-1-78803-173-8 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mf88DgAAQBAJ&pg=PA362 | access-date=2020-05-31 | page=362}}</ref><ref name="Doan Garrity 2006 p. 57">{{cite book | last1=Doan | first1=L. | last2=Garrity | first2=J. | title=Sapphic Modernities: Sexuality, Women and National Culture | publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US | year=2006 | isbn=978-1-4039-8442-5 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=oWDHAAAAQBAJ&pg=PA57 | access-date=2020-05-31 | page=57}}</ref><ref name="The IET - WES Vol 1" /> In the early 1920s, the garage featured a restaurant<ref>{{Cite web |last=Broadbent |first=Lizzie |date=2024-08-12 |title=Gabrielle Borthwick (1866-1952) |url=https://womenwhomeantbusiness.com/2024/08/12/gabrielle-borthwick-1866-1952/ |access-date=2024-08-12 |website=Women Who Meant Business |language=en}}</ref> and residential club for chauffeurs.
She was elected to the first Council of the Women's Engineering Society in 1920, and contributed articles to their journal, The Woman Engineer.<ref name="The IET - WES Vol 1" />
Borthwick was also a Director of The Stainless Steel and Non-Corrosive Metals Company Limited, set up in Birmingham in 1922 by Cleone Benest, at that time using the name C Griff. Other directors of the company included Gertrude Crawford, and C. Davis, a former foundry manager. The firm received wide press coverage for being managed by and employing women. Using Benest's colouring method, the company manufactured lamp reflectors, ornaments, railway fittings and other items, before it folded in 1925.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Benest, Cleone de Heveningham [pseud. C. Griff] (1880–1963), motorist, engineer, and metallurgist|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-111238|access-date=2020-12-23|website=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|year=2018|language=en|doi=10.1093/odnb/9780198614128.013.111238|isbn=978-0-19-861412-8|last1=Baker|first1=Nina}}</ref>
== Later life == Gabrielle Borthwick died on 10 October 1952 in Broadbridge Heath, Sussex.<ref>{{cite news |title=The London Gazette. |url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/39788/page/1208/data.pdf |date=27 February 1953}}</ref>
==References and sources== {{Reflist}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Borthwick, Gabrielle}} Category:1866 births Category:1952 deaths Category:Daughters of barons Category:Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn Category:People from Sussex Category:Women's Engineering Society Category:20th-century women engineers