{{Short description|English author and suffragist (1871–1960)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=December 2015}} {{Use British English|date=December 2015}} {{Infobox person | name = | image = craig-atwood-marshall.jpg | alt = | caption = Edith Craig, Clare Atwood and Christabel Marshall at Smallhythe Place | birth_name = | birth_date = {{birth date|1871|10|24|df=y}} | birth_place = Exeter, Devon, England | death_date = {{death date and age|1960|10|20|1871|10|24|df=y}} | death_place = Tenterden, Kent, England | resting_place = St John the Baptist, Smallhythe, Kent, England | nationality = | other_names = Joanna Willett | alma_mater = Somerville College, University of Oxford | occupation = playwright, author and suffragist | years_active = | organization = Women's Social and Political Union, Women Writers' Suffrage League, Actresses' Franchise League | known_for = | notable_works = }}
'''Christabel Gertrude Marshall''' (aka '''Christopher Marie St John''') (24 October 1871 – 20 October 1960) was an English campaigner for women's suffrage, a playwright and author. Marshall lived in a ménage à trois with the artist Clare Atwood and the actress, director and theatrical designer Edith Craig from 1916 until Craig's death in 1947.<ref name="strange">{{Cite book |last=Holroyd |first=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SqLTAQAACAAJ&q=editions:D2QW9dgbrA0C |title=A Strange Eventful History: The Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and Their Remarkable Families |date=2008 |publisher=Chatto & Windus |isbn=978-0-7011-7987-8 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="LAT">{{Cite web |last=Rubin |first=Martin |date=2009-03-23 |title=Supporting cast spoils great leads |url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-mar-23-et-book23-story.html |access-date=2025-02-16 |website=Los Angeles Times |language=en-US}}</ref><ref name="Gilmore">{{Cite book |last1=Rudd |first1=Jill |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Am4bzJUW5cQC&dq=edith+craig+clare+atwood+chritabel+marshall&pg=PA90 |title=Charlotte Perkins Gilman: Optimist Reformer |last2=Gough |first2=Val |date=1999-04-01 |publisher=University of Iowa Press |isbn=978-1-58729-310-8 |pages=90 |language=en}}</ref><ref name="Law">{{Cite book |last=Law |first=Cheryl |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=C17PslUo1DYC&dq=edith+craig+clare+atwood+christabel+marshall&pg=PA221 |title=Suffrage and Power: The Women's Movement 1918-1928 |date=1997-12-31 |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |isbn=978-1-86064-201-2 |pages=221 |language=en}}</ref>
==Family and education== Born in Exeter, she was the youngest of nine children of Emma Marshall, née Martin (1828–1899), novelist, and Hugh Graham Marshall (c.1825–1899), manager of the West of England Bank. She changed her name on her conversion to Catholicism in adulthood.<ref name="ODNB">Cockin, Katharine. (2004) [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/57057 "St John, Christopher Marie (1871–1960)"], ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 11 March 2010</ref>
Having taken a BA in Modern History at Somerville College, Oxford,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last1=Carroll |first1=Rachel |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HVTcEAAAQBAJ&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PT553 |title=The Routledge Companion to Literature and Feminism |last2=Tolan |first2=Fiona |date=2023-12-01 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-99145-1 |language=en}}</ref> Marshall became the secretary to Mrs Humphry Ward, Lady Randolph Churchill and, occasionally, to her son Winston Churchill.
== Career and relationships == In pursuit of becoming a dramatist, Marshall went on the stage for three years to learn stagecraft, briefly using the stage name Joanna Willett in 1903.<ref name=":0" /> She lived with the designer and director Edith Craig from 1899 to Craig's death in 1947 first at Smith Square, then Covent Garden, and later Tenterden, Kent.<ref name="Craig">Cockin, Katharine. ''Edith Craig (1869-1947): Dramatic Lives'', Cassell (1998)</ref> Their relationship became temporarily strained when Craig received, and accepted, a marriage proposal from the composer Martin Shaw in 1903, and Marshall attempted suicide.<ref name="ODNB" /> She occasionally worked as secretary to the actress Ellen Terry and travelled to America with Terry in 1907.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Nelson |first=Carolyn Christensen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mXqYZTxqIQcC&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PR37 |title=Literature of the Women's Suffrage Campaign in England |date=2004-06-25 |publisher=Broadview Press |isbn=978-1-55111-511-5 |pages=xxxvii |language=en}}</ref>
In 1916, Marshall and Craig were joined by the artist Clare 'Tony' Atwood, living in a ménage à trois<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Halberstam |first1=Judith |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UYAi9OEYRekC&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PA87 |title=Female Masculinity |last2=Halberstam |first2=Jack |date=1998 |publisher=Duke University Press |isbn=978-0-8223-2243-6 |pages=87–88 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |last=Ann |first=Oakley |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7o-KDwAAQBAJ&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PA440 |title=Women, Peace and Welfare: A Suppressed History of Social Reform, 1880-1920 |date=2019-03-13 |publisher=Policy Press |isbn=978-1-4473-3262-6 |pages=307–308 |language=en}}</ref> until Craig died in 1947.<ref name="strange" /> In 1900, Marshall published her first novel, ''The Crimson Weed'', which takes its title from a transformation of the traditional symbol of the red rose. A feminist, in 1909 she joined the Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU), having previously worked for the Women Writers' Suffrage League and the Actresses' Franchise League.<ref name="Crawford">{{Cite book |last=Crawford |first=Elizabeth |author-link=Elizabeth Crawford (historian) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a2EK9P7-ZMsC&dq=Christabel+Marshall+suffrage&pg=PA614 |title=The Women's Suffrage Movement: A Reference Guide, 1866-1928 |date=2003 |publisher=UCL Press |isbn=9781135434021 |pages=614 |language=en}}</ref>
thumb|Christopher St. John In 1909, Marshall turned her friend Cicely Hamilton's<ref>{{Cite book |last=Clay |first=Catherine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Br42DwAAQBAJ&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PT299 |title=British Women Writers 1914-1945: Professional Work and Friendship |date=2017-09-20 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-351-95449-5 |pages=12 |language=en}}</ref> short story ''How The Vote Was Won'' into a play,<ref name=":1" /> and it became popular with women's suffrage groups throughout the United Kingdom and a "box office triumph."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Fehlbaum |first=Valerie |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QkIrDwAAQBAJ&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PA154 |title=Ella Hepworth Dixon: The Story of a Modern Woman |date=2017-07-05 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-351-94079-5 |pages=154 |language=en}}</ref> Also in 1909, Marshall joined a WSPU deputation to the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, contributing an article ''Why I Went on the Deputation'' to the journal ''Votes for Women'' in July 1909. In November 1909, Marshall appeared as the woman-soldier Hannah Snell in Hamilton's ''Pageant of Great Women'', directed by Craig. With Hamilton she also wrote ''The Pot and the Kettle'' (1909), and with Charles Thursby,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/a-curious-encounter-at-st-ives/ |title=A Curious Encounter at St Ives · Meanjin · Literacy in Australia · Melbourne University Publishing · Classic English Literature Books · Australian Literary Journals & Magazines |accessdate=2015-01-12 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20150102004758/http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/a-curious-encounter-at-st-ives/ |archivedate=2 January 2015 |df=dmy }}</ref> ''The Coronation'' (1912). In May 1911 her play ''The First Actress'' was one of the three plays in the first production of Craig's theatre society, the Pioneer Players.<ref name="Crawford" /><ref name=":2">{{Cite web |title=Miss Christabel St John |url=https://www.suffrageresources.org.uk/database/2409/miss-christabel-st-john |access-date=2025-02-16 |website=Database - Women's Suffrage Resources}}</ref> Marshall's plays ''Macrena'' and ''On the East Side'' were produced by the Pioneer Players, as well as her translation (with Marie Potapenko) of ''The Theatre of the Soul'' by Nikolai Evreinov.<ref name="Pioneer">{{Cite book |last=Cockin |first=Katharine |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6_AvYgEACAAJ |title=Women and Theatre in the Age of Suffrage: The Pioneer Players 1911-1925 |date=2001 |publisher=Palgrave |isbn=978-0-312-23764-6 |language=en}}</ref>
Marshall converted to ascetic Catholicism in 1912, in Rome,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=Dawn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QfjnDwAAQBAJ&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=RA1-PT193 |title=Pamela Colman Smith, Tarot Artist: The Pious Pixie |date=2020-05-29 |publisher=Fonthill Media |language=en}}</ref> and took the name St John.<ref name="Crawford" /> She joined the Catholic Women's Suffrage Society, later known as the St. Joan's International Alliance, in 1913.<ref name=":2" /> She was arrested for taking part in a deputation to the House of Commons and for setting fire to a letter box.<ref name=":2" />
St John, Craig and Atwood were friends with many artists and writers including lesbian novelist Radclyffe Hall, who lived nearby in Rye.<ref name="Craig" /> As Christopher St John in 1915, she published her autobiographical novel ''Hungerheart'', which she had started in 1899, and which she based on her relationship with Craig and her own involvement in the women's suffrage movement.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Taylor |first=Clare L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ClKHyiuo-TgC&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PA57 |title=Women, Writing, and Fetishism, 1890-1950: Female Cross-gendering |date=2003 |publisher=Clarendon Press |isbn=978-0-19-924410-2 |pages=57 |language=en}}</ref> It had the subtitle ''story of the soul''<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Barrett |first1=Eileen |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JNQyMMwYVCwC&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PA149 |title=Virginia Woolf: Lesbian Readings |last2=Cramer |first2=Patricia |date=1997 |publisher=NYU Press |isbn=978-0-8147-1263-4 |pages=149–150 |language=en}}</ref> and explored her sexuality and spiritualism.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lamontagne |first=Kathryn G. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zG3CEAAAQBAJ&q=st+john&pg=PT199 |title=Reconsidering Catholic Lay Womanhood: Pious Transgressors in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century England |date=2023-07-26 |publisher=Taylor & Francis |isbn=978-1-000-90602-8 |pages=46 |language=en}}</ref> St John was also contracted by Terry to assist on various publications. After Terry's death in 1928, St John published the ''Shaw–Terry Correspondence'' (1931) and Terry's ''Four Lectures on Shakespeare'' (1932). St John and Craig revised and edited Terry's ''Memoirs'' (1933).<ref name="Spheres">Terry, Ellen. ''Spheres of Influence'', edited by Katharine Cockin, Pickering & Chatto 2011</ref> After Craig's death in 1947, St John and Atwood helped to keep the Ellen Terry Memorial Museum in operation. Some of St John's papers have survived in the National Trust's Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Archive.<ref name="Archive">[http://www.ellenterryarchive.hull.ac.uk AHRC Ellen Terry and Edith Craig Archive Database]</ref>
Her relationship with Craig and Atwood is portrayed in the play ''Grace Pervades'' by David Hare, which premiered in the West End in 2026.<ref>Barr, Nick. [https://1883magazine.com/ralph-fiennes-grace-pervades-review "Ralph Fiennes dazzles in ''Grace Pervades''"], ''1883'', 2 May 2026</ref>
== Death== Marshall died from pneumonia connected with heart disease at Tenterden in 1960. Marshall and Atwood are buried alongside each other at St John the Baptist's Church, Small Hythe. Craig's ashes were supposed to be buried there as well, but at the time of Marshall and Atwood's deaths, the ashes were lost and a memorial was placed in the cemetery instead.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rachlin |first=Ann |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4CdiyiFkkDEC&dq=Christabel+Marshall&pg=PT19 |title=Edy was a Lady |date=2011 |publisher=Troubador Publishing Ltd |isbn=978-1-78088-012-9 |pages=62 |language=en}}</ref>
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=stjoch The Orlando Project of Women Writers] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725134338/http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=stjoch |date=25 July 2011 }}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Christabel}} Category:1871 births Category:1960 deaths Category:Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Category:Christian ascetics Category:English stage actresses Category:English Catholics Category:English LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights Category:English suffragists Category:English women dramatists and playwrights Category:Members of the Women Writers' Suffrage League Category:People from Exeter Category:Women's Social and Political Union Category:19th-century English LGBTQ people Category:20th-century English LGBTQ people