Stella Gibbons full-time writing career. In March 1931 Gibbons had become engaged to Allan Webb, a budding actor and opera singer five years her junior. He was the son of a cricketing parson, and the grandson of Allan Becher Webb, a former Bishop of Bloemfontein who served as Dean of Salisbury Cathedral. On 1 April 1933 the couple were married at St Matthew's, Bayswater. Later that year she learned that "Cold Comfort Farm" had been awarded the "Prix Étranger", the foreign novel category of the prestigious French literary prize, the "Prix Femina". It had won against works by two more experienced writers,
Edward Stanley Gibbons Edward Stanley Gibbons Edward Stanley Gibbons (21 June 1840 – 17 February 1913) was an English stamp dealer and founder of Stanley Gibbons Ltd, publishers of the famous Stanley Gibbons stamp catalogue and other stamp-related books and magazines. Edward Stanley Gibbons was born at his father William Gibbons' chemist shop at 15 Treville Street, Plymouth on 21 June 1840, in the same year that the United Kingdom issued the Penny Black, which was the world's first postage stamp. Edward’s interest in postage stamps began whilst at Halloran’s Collegiate School. Gibbons, who was a member of The Plymouth Institution (now The