Editing Gustav Hamel (section)

==Personal life==
Hamel's flying exploits made him a well-known public figure. He was a member of [[The Coterie]], a prominent social set of aristocrats and intellectuals. He was considered popular and good-looking, and was a particular favourite of [[Lady Diana Manners]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lambert |first=Angela |title=Unquiet souls : a social history of the illustrious, irreverent, intimate group of British aristocrats known as "the Souls" |publisher=Harper and Row |year=1984 |isbn=0060153296 |location=New York |pages=158-159 |oclc=11402353}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Cooper |first=Diana |title=Autobiography  |publisher=Faber and Faber |year=2008 |isbn=9780571247578 |location=London |pages=108-109 |oclc=1313861069}}</ref>

On the 30 September 1911, Hamel was driving his car on the Surbiton Road in [[Kingston on Thames]] with one of his sisters as a passenger. The car struck and killed a five-year-old girl called Gladys Storey, who had been playing in the road.<ref name="Times-1911-10-02">{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Motor-Car Accident |date=1911-10-02 |page=4 |issue=39705 |column=5}}</ref>

Hamel was a friend of the actress [[Gladys Cooper]]; in 1915 she won £1,200 in damages from a newspaper, the ''London Mail'', in a libel action over rumours she'd had adulterous affairs with both Hamel and an actor called Dennis Eadie. Another friend of Hamel's was [[Eleanor Trehawke Davies]]. Flying as a passenger with him, she became the first woman to fly the English Chanel in 1912 and the first woman to loop-the loop.<ref>{{Cite newspaper The Times |title=Famous Airwoman Dead |date=1916-01-21 |page=35 |issue=41069 |column=3}}</ref>