Lady Grace Drummond-Hay

Lady Grace Marguerite Hay Drummond-Hay (born Grace Marguerite Lethbridge, 1 September 1895 in Liverpool - 12 February 1946 in Manhattan) was the first woman to travel around the world by air, in a Zeppelin. Although she was not an aviator herself at first, she certainly contributed to its glamour and the general knowledge about her aerial adventures by writing articles about it in mainstream American newspapers in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Gracie Lethbridge married in 1923 to Sir Robert Hay Drummond-Hay (1846-1925) at the age of 28, her husband being fifty years older. Sir Robert was born in Tanger, Morocco and had been the British consul-general for years in Beirut, Lebanon. He added Hay to his surname in 1906, being a descendant of a noble family. Sir Robert was previously married to Euphemia Katrina Willis Flemming. Four children were produced in this marriage, Arnold Robert, Edward William, Cecil and Florence Caroline. The children were all significantly older than their new stepmother, Florence Caroline being 15 years older. After hardly three years of marriage, Sir Robert died. Lady Grace then was 31 years old. As a young aristocratic widow she lived in her apartment in London.

Having contributed to English papers such as The Sphere, she became involved as a journalist for the papers of William Randolph Hearst in the late 1920s. As a star journalist, she wrote articles for The Chicago Herald and Examiner, edited by the Hearst Press, as one of the passengers aboard the first transatlantic flight of a civilian passenger Zeppelin in 1928.

This airship, the LZ 127 Graf Zeppelin was also the first one to circumnavigate the world in 1929. This trip around the world took place in August 1929, taking off at Lakehurst, New Jersey and arriving there again 21 days later, after stops in Friedrichshafen (Germany), Tokyo and Los Angeles. Lady Hay Drummond-Hay, or Lady Drummond-Hay, as she was often referred to, was the only female passenger. Among her companion travellers were the Australian explorer Sir George Hubert Wilkins, the American multi-millionaire William B. Leeds, U.S. Navy Commander Charles Emery Rosendahl, Naval observer Jack C. Richardson, renowned American Hearst correspondent Karl Henry von Wiegand, Hearst photographer Robert Hartman, Spanish newspaper correspondent Joachim Rickard, German correspondent Heinz von Eschwege-Lichbert, and Geronimo Megias, a physician and the personal doctor of Spanish King Alfonso XIII. Hugo Eckener was the captain of this flight around the world. Lady Drummond-Hay became a star after she arrived in New York, her career as a journalist being consolidated for the next decade.

She went to war zones such as Abyssinia (Ethiopia) and was a foreign correspondent in Manchuria. She worked closely together for many years with her senior colleague Karl H. von Wiegand. Being praised for her extraordinary beauty and wit, and the intelligence and flair with which her articles were written, Lady Grace was a well-known and respected journalist of her time. At her funeral she wore a precious jewel that was given to her by the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie.

During World War II, Lady Drummond-Hay and Karl H. von Wiegand were interned in a Japanese camp in Manila, Philippines. When they were set free in 1945, she was very ill. They returned to the United States, but during their stay in New York Lady Grace Drummond-Hay died of coronary thrombosis in the Lexington Hotel. At her burial service many notables paid their last respects, amongst which William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies. After being cremated, her ashes were brought to the United Kingdom by her life-long companion Karl H. von Wiegand.