Guinness, Sir Algernon Arthur St Lawrence Lee (1883–1954), racing driver, was born 11 May 1883, eldest son of Benjamin Lee Guinness – soldier and younger brother of Arthur Edward Lee Guinness (qv), 1st Lord Ardilaun – and Eliza Guinness (née St Lawrence). Educated at Eton, he used the legacy he was due to inherit to fund his motor-racing habit from Portmarnock, where he was first in the 1904 speed trials, to the Gaillon hill climb in France, where he recorded a fastest speed of 89 mph. Entering his inheritance in 1906, he covered the Ostend speed trials at a top speed of 117 mph. The same year he bought the massive 18-litre V8 Darracq that powered him in September 1907 to 115 mph at Brooklands racing track. In 1907 he was third in the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy and placed second and third in two circuits of the Ardennes. Second in the 1908 Isle of Man Tourist Trophy, he failed to make a turn at 80 mph in the 1913 French grand prix at Picardy and crashed through a barrier, killing a spectator and ending up, unhurt, in a river. From 1914 to 1918 he was an acting lieutenant-commander in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, inheriting the Ardilaun peerage from his uncle in 1915. Seafaring attracted him; he raced a high-speed Sunbeam-Desjupols boat in the 1920 British International Trophy at Harmsworth, losing to the American Gar Wood. In 1922 he won the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy for voiturettes (a smaller class of car than those used for Grand Prix), at an average speed of 53 mph over 226 miles. After retirement he served as a steward of the British Racing Drivers' Council and the Royal Automobile Club. From 1939 to 1945 he was a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, involved in air–sea rescue, and was mentioned in dispatches. He died on 26 October 1954 at his home in Cookham, Berkshire, where he was buried. His wife, Winifred Guinness (née Hall), of Hamilton, Ontario, and one daughter survived him. The Royal Irish Automobile Club holds an archive of his racing career as part of its Segrave Library.
His brother Guinness Kenelm Lee (‘Bill’) (1887–1937), born 16 August 1887, was also a famous racing driver. In 1913 he was third in the Coupe de l'Auto at Boulogne in a Sunbeam, and the following year he won the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy over 600 miles in two days at an average 56 mph. From 1914 to 1918 he was lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He invented the KLG sparking plug and withdrew from active service to concentrate on its production for Royal Air Force planes. He was awarded the MBE (1920) and sold his business interest to Smiths Accessories in 1927. After 1918 he was leading driver of the Sunbeam-Talbot–Darracq team, proving himself highly skilled at efficient high-speed driving. In 1921 he was second in the Voiturette circuit race at Le Mans and second again in the Junior Car Club ‘200’ race at Brooklands, where he was timed at a high speed of 140 mph. He won the 1922 Junior Car Club ‘200’ and the same year won the Coupe des Voiturettes at Le Mans from Albert Divo by only five seconds, despite having covered 375 miles at average speed of 72 mph. His next victory was the 1922 Penya Rhin Spanish Grand Prix at the Villefranca de Palades circuit near Barcelona. In 1922 he won the André Gold Cup and in 1923 the French Grand Prix. In 1924 he set a world land-speed record of 133 mph at Brooklands. The same year he won the Junior Car Club ‘200’, but disaster struck at the San Sebastian Spanish grand prix. In treacherously wet conditions, he crashed on the eleventh lap, killing his mechanic, Perkins, and causing himself severe head injuries that left him unconscious for days. At first he seemed to have made a full recovery. He was appointed a director of the Guinness brewery company in 1927 and advised on the structure of the Phoenix Park racecourse for the first Irish Grand Prix in 1929. But he suffered from increasing mental instability and took his own life, by gas, on 10 April 1937. He is buried at Putney Vale cemetery. His marriage (1928) to Josephine Strangman was dissolved in 1936; their two children survived him.