Full name: Donald Campbell Born: 23rd March 1921 Invention/Achievement: Land and Water Speed Records Date of introduction/Achievement: 1955-1964  Died: 4th January 1967

After Sir Malcolm, a prolific breaker of world records on land and water, died on 31^st December 1948 his son Donald Campbell used his father's boat Blue Bird K4 (which he renamed Bluebird K4) in a series of unsuccessful record attempts.  

In 1953 he started work on a completely new boat, an all-metal jet-powered hydroplane design, Bluebird K7.  

Between 1955 and 1964 Campbell set seven world water speed records with the progressively modified K7, starting at Ullswater, where on the 23^rd July 1955 he set a record of 202.32 mph (325.60 km/h).

In 1956 he set a new record of 225 mph, reaching an astonishing peak speed of 286.78 mph (461.53 km/h), 239 mph (385 km/h) in 1957, 248 mph (399 km/h) in 1958 and 260 mph (420 km/h) in 1959.  

Campbell now attempted the land speed record.  Bluebird-Proteus CN7 was designed to achieve 500 mph (800 km/h) and in 1960 Campbell took it to Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah, USA.  On his sixth run, Campbell lost control of the car while travelling at 360 mph and crashed, causing considerable damage to CN7 and injuring himself.  Nevertheless, Campbell's next record attempt came at Lake Eyre in Australia, where the dried out lake offered a 20 mile flat surface.  

Unfortunately, because of unusually heavy rain, when in July 1964 he made his record attempt the track was still wet.  Even so, Campbell achieved a new official land speed record of 403.10 mph (648.73 km/h) peaking at 440 mph (710 km/h).  

On the last day of 1964, also in Australia, he set a new water speed record of 276.33 mph (444.71 km/h) becoming the only person to break both land and water speed records in the same year.

In 4^th January 1967 Campbell made another attempt on the water speed record.  On the first run he achieved a speed of 297.6 mph (478.9 km/h).  Without waiting for his wake to settle he turned for the second run.  After reaching a peak speed of 328 mph (528 km/h) Bluebird K7 somersaulted and disintegrated on landing.  Campbell's body was never found.