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,
Charles Gibbons for the Postal Telegraph Company. In 1932 he started The Minute Man Messenger Service. In 1940, Gibbons was an unsuccessful candidate for the Stoneham, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen. He ran again the following year and was elected easily. In 1942 he was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Gibbons soon became a major figure in state Republican politics. In 1949 he was elected Republican floor leader and four years later was elected Speaker of the House. The Republicans lost control of the House in 1955 and Gibbons spent the next two years as Minority Leader. In 1956, Gibbons was