Jessie Pengilly


Jessie Eunice Pengilly was an Australian world-record-holding cyclist from Kellerberrin, Western Australia.
At the time of her death in a road traffic accident, aged 27, she held 43 women's cycling records including three world, 17 Australian and 23 Western Australian records.

Early life

Born in Subiaco, Pengilly grew up on the family's Fair View Farm, near Kellerberrin. As an 11-year-old her short stories were published in the Western Australian Sunday Times newspaper. She went on to become an outstanding woman athlete, hockey player, yachtswoman and cyclist. She worked as a clerk at Bushells Coffee in Fremantle and lived in Cottesloe.

Cycling career

Jessie Pengilly joined the women's section of the 'City of Perth Cycling Club' in 1937, and by 1938 she was successful in unpaced road racing.
By July 1940 she held the Northam-to-Perth, Perth-to-Northam, York-to-Perth, the 26- and 50-mile, and the 1-, 2- and 3-hour cycling records. She then cut 29.5 minutes off Joan Randall's Perth-York record despite riding into wind and rain, plus suffering a puncture. She rode a Bluebird standard bicycle fitted with Osgear Derailleur gears designed by Oscar Egg.

Death

Pengilly died from multiple injuries on 27 May 1945, when the small sports car in which she was a passenger skidded on tram lines on a wet road and collided with a Pioneer bus near the Swan Brewery in Mounts Bay Road, Perth. The driver of the car, Joseph Kenneth Willis, was killed three months later in a road incident nearby, at the corner of Hay Street and Victoria Avenue, on 15 August 1945.

Records

World (road)