Mirabel Topham (15 August 1891 – 28 May 1980) was chairman and managing director of Topham Ltd for 36 years to 1973 and owner of Aintree Racecourse in Liverpool, England, where the Grand National horse steeplechase is held. She was one of the colourful and controversial personalities in UK racing during this time. Early life and stage career Mirabel Dorothy Hillier was born in London on 14 August 1891 and spent her childhood at the Baron's Court Hotel in Fulham that was managed by her grandparents James and Rachel Hillier. Her parents Henry Hope and Nellie Hillier (née Buck) assisted, but by 1922 her father was manager of the Haymarket Theatre, London. She had one brother (Cedric, died 1991, aged 99), a sister Beatrice (1895–1988) and a second sister who died in infancy. The family moved to West Ham and then Walthamstow, by which time the sisters were working as actresses or gaiety girls under the names Hope and Trixie Hillier. As Hope Hillier she appeared in plays, comedies and pantomimes in London's West End as well as touring productions. In 1907 she was in the farce Mrs Ponderbury's Post at the Vaudeville produced by Charles Hawtrey. While on tour appearing in The Cinema Star at the Royal Court Theatre, Liverpool, she met Arthur Topham whom she would later marry. Her last appearance was in a 1922 production of J. M. Barrie's Quality Street at the Haymarket. Mirabel Hillier married Arthur Ronald Topham on 19 April 1922 at Our Lady and St Edward church, Chiswick. They had become engaged in 1916 when he was in the army (gunner, Royal Artillery). The couple had a difficult relationship. They did not have any children but later informally adopted a cousin's children, Patricia and James Bidwell-Topham, who later inherited most of her estate. From 1937 Mirabel and Arthur Topham lived in Paddock Lodge on the Aintree Racecourse site. Ronald Topham was not suited to business life but Mirabel demonstrated business expertise and a real interest in the race course. Professional life with Topham Ltd Topham's family had run the Aintree Racecourse near Liverpool since the 1840s. She joined the board of Topham Ltd, the family firm that ran Aintree Racecourse, becoming a director in 1935 and chairman and managing director in 1938 until 1973. Mirabel Topham was a forceful personality in the male-dominated world of racing. During the Second World War, although the