Donald Campbell Collection

Files of newspaper cuttings and folder of reverse negatives.

<p>There are numerous photographs of Campbell held in the Photographic Library and books relating to him in the Reference Library, in the NMMT.</p>

Open to bona fide researchers. By appointment only.

The collection was donated to the NMMT in a metal cabin trunk by Mrs. Gina Villa on 19th Decembe 1981 as a gift.

The son of Sir Malcolm Campbell, Donald was born on March 23rd 1921. After his father's death he followed in his footsteps in land and water speed record breaking. His early attempts began with the water speed record using the boat K4 that his father used but despite some valiant efforts he struggled with the boat, suffering a 170 mph crash in 1951. This prompted him to develop a completely new boat, the K7. This was to prove a formidable boat in which he set 7 World Water Speed records between 1955 and 1964. The first was on Ullswater where he set a record of 202 mph. This was raised to 216 mph at Lake Mead in 1955. Then began a sequence of record raising runs at Coniston where he attained 248mph in 1958. He finally raised it to 276mph in 1964 at Lake Dumbleyung. His attentions then turned to cars, and while attempting a record run in 1960 at Utah, he crashed very heavily, resulting in a long convalescence period. In 1964 at Lake Eyre, Australia, he set a new World Land Speed Record of 403.1mph. In December of the same year, again in Australia, this time at Lake Dumbleyung he achieved a second world speed record, this time on water at 276.33mph, thus becoming the first and thus far the only person to hold both Water and Land World Speed Records at the same time. Three years later on January 4th 1967 whilst trying to become the first person to go over 300mph on water he crashed at Coniston Water. He had achieved a run of 297mph on the first leg, but turning around without refuelling and not waiting for his wake to settle, he set off on the second leg. The boat lifted out of the water after exceeding a speed of 300mph, somersaulted and disintegrated on landing on the surface. Bluebird and his body were not recovered from the water until 2001.