Poppy Wyndham(1893-1928)

The Honorable Elsie Mackay was born August 21, 1893 in Simla-Calcutta, West Bengal, India, to James Lyle Mackay, 1st Earl of Inchcape of Strathnaver, a British colonial administrator in India who became chairman of the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company and Jean Paterson Shanks. Her brother, Kenneth Mackay was the 2nd Lord Inchcape. Her sister Effie Mackay, married Sir Eugen Millington-Drake, who was the British Minister to Uraguay during the 1939 Battle of the River Plate (view the 1956 film). Elsie was reportedly disinherited by her family after eloping with actor Dennis Wyndham to be married on 23 May 1917. She appeared as silent film actress Poppy Wyndham from 1919 through 1920. In a historical photo from Grand Central Palace Bldg in New York, it states that as Poppy Wyndham she was the first woman jockey in England, and in her short career on the turf she piloted no less than a dozen winners under the barriers. In the few events from which her sex did not bar her, her colors - yellow and blue - were always present, and always were heavily backed. After the marriage to Wyndham was annulled in 1922 she returned to her family and developed a career as an interior decorator, creating lavish interiors, state rooms and public spaces for her father's shipping line, the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O). In 1923 she launched the RMS Maloja, and went on to design much of the interiors for the four P&O "R" class ships of 1925: SS Rawalpindi, SS Ranchi, SS Ranpura and SS Rajputana, plus the RMS Viceroy of India in 1927. In early March 1928 the Daily Express discovered that Captain Hinchliffe and Mackay were preparing for a transatlantic attempt by carrying out test flights at RAF Cranwell and were staying at the George Hotel in Leadenham near Grantham. The story was silenced by Mackay's threatened legal action as she intended to depart in secret while her father was in Egypt, having promised her family she would not make the attempt. At 8:35 am on 13 March 1928 Endeavour took off from RAF Cranwell, Lincolnshire, with minimal fuss as Hinchliffe had told only two friends he was going and Elsie registered under the pseudonym of 'Gordon Sinclair'. Approximately five hours later, at 1.30 pm the chief lighthouse keeper at Mizen Head on the south west coast of Cork, Ireland saw the monoplane over the village of Crookhaven. A French steamer later reported seeing them still on course, but nothing else is known. A crowd of 5,000 is reputed to have waited for them at Mitchel Field, Long Island. In December 1928, eight months later, a single piece of identifiable undercarriage (a wheel with a serial number on it) washed ashore in north west Ireland. Her body was never recovered and there is a memorial stained glass window, as well as an inscription underneath the bell at Glenapp Church on the family estate marking her death as 13th March 1928.