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Edith Ailsa Geraldine Craig (9 December 1869 – 27 March 1947), was a prolific theatre director, producer, costume designer and early pioneer of the women's suffrage movement in England. She was the daughter of the actress Ellen Terry and the progressive English architect-designer Edward William Godwin, and the sister of theatre practitioner Edward Gordon Craig.
As a lesbian, an active campaigner for women's suffrage, and a woman working as a theatre director and producer, Edith Craig has been recovered by feminist scholars as well as theatre historians.Dymkowski (1992); Cockin (1998); and Gandolfi (2003) Craig lived in a ménage à trois with the dramatist Christabel Marshall and the artist Clare Atwood from 1916 until her death.Rudd, Jill & Val Gough (eds.) Charlotte Perkins Gilmore: Optimist Reformer, University of Iowa Press, p. 90 (1999)Law, Cheryl. Suffrage and Power: the Women's Movement, 1918–1928, i B Tauris & Co., p. 221 (1997)
Craig was educated at Mrs Cole's school, a co-educational institution in Earls Court in London, then studied at Dixton Manor, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, under Elizabeth Malleson, who introduced her to the suffrage movement, and later at the Royal Academy of Music. She held a certificate in piano from Trinity College London. "Edith Craig", Collaborative Organization for Virtual Education (COVE), accessed January 22, 2022 Craig made her first appearance on the stage in 1878 during the run of Olivia at the Royal Court Theatre, in which her mother starred. She trained as a pianist under Alexis Hollander in Berlin, Germany, from 1887 to 1890.Katharine Cockin. "Craig, Edith Ailsa Geraldine (1869–1947)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004, online ed., January 2008, accessed 10 March 2010]
Craig founded the Pioneer Players (1911–1925), a theatre society based in London.Cockin (2001) The Pioneer Players were known for producing formerly banned plays, plays on social humanism, women's suffrage and feminism and, from 1915, foreign plays in English. The plays in translation allowed the group to reach beyond the Actresses Franchise League and to be accepted into mainstream English theatre. Craig's mother was president of the society. Craig served as the managing director / stage director, and her partner, Chris St. John, served as the secretary. An advisory committee included Shaw and the President Gabrielle Enthoven. Who's Who in the Theatre, 8th edition 1936, ed. John Parker The Pioneer Players has been described by some critics as a women's theatre company, increasing women's opportunities in theatre. for whom Craig produced approximately 150 plays.
After the Pioneer Players finally closed, Craig produced plays for the Little Theatre movement at York, Leeds, Letchworth and Hampstead. In 1919, she was an important figure in the British Drama League (BDL), which had been formed to promote amateur theatre throughout the United Kingdom, and to encourage a lasting peace after World War I.Cockin, Katharine. "Dame Ellen Terry and Edith Craig: Suitable Subjects for Teaching" , Wordplay, English Subject Centre Magazine, Issue 2, October 2009, accessed 18 October 2015 Later Craig directed plays at the Everyman Theatre, Hampstead and Leeds Art Theatre.Cockin (1998) In 1929, the year after Terry's death, Craig converted the Elizabethan barn adjacent to Terry's house at Smallhythe Place into a theatre which she named The Barn Theatre. Here she produced Shakespeare every year to commemorate the anniversary of her mother's death. Craig also appeared in a number of , Craig on the Internet Movie Database including Fires of Fate (1923).
Craig was involved in many suffrage groups, and sold newspapers on behalf of that cause in the street. After she met a woman selling newspapers for the Women's Freedom she became a member and worked at branch level for that group. She did not fully understand the meaning of suffragism, but formed strong opinions about it quickly. She stated that she "grew up quite firmly certain that no self-respecting woman could be other than a suffragist". Craig used her theatrical experience on behalf of the Actresses' Franchise League and was also involved in various suffrage productions. She directed A Pageant of Great Women, a play she devised with the writer and actor Cicely Hamilton, which was performed across the United Kingdom before large audiences. A Pageant followed the concept of a morality play in which the main character, Woman, is confronted by the antagonist, Prejudice, who believes that men and women are not equal. Justice presides over the debate between Prejudice and Woman, as groups of great women process on stage as evidence of women's achievements in art, government, education, spiritual matters and battle.Cockin (2005), pp. 527–42 Craig directed each production of this play, bringing the three professional actors to perform Woman, Justice and Prejudice and the historically accurate costumes with her to each venue. Craig frequently played the role of Rosa Bonheur, a lesbian artist.
On the death of her mother Craig committed her life to preserving her mother's legacy. She opened the family home, Smallhythe Place in Kent, England to the public. From 1939 she was supported in running the house by the National Trust. On her death she left Smallhythe Place to the National Trust as a memorial to her mother. Craig died of coronary thrombosis and chronic myocarditis on 27 March 1947 at Priest's House, Smallhythe Place while planning a Shakespeare festival in honour of her mother. Her body was cremated. 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 got lost, and a memorial was placed in the cemetery instead.Rachlin, Ann. Edy was a Lady. Troubador Publishing (2011), p. 62
Edith Craig suffered from acute arthritis especially in her hands. In her younger days, this painful condition prevented her from becoming a professional pianist. In her later years, after the death of her mother, Craig dictated her memoirs to her friend Vera Holme, known as Jacko. Holme wrote them down in a quarto notebook that was "lost in an attic" for decades and then sold to Ann Rachlin in 1978. They included Craig's reminiscences of her childhood and life with her mother, brother and Henry Irving. Rachlin published them in her book Edy was a Lady in 2011.Rachlin (2011), passim
Virginia Woolf is said to have used Edith Craig as a model for the character of Miss LaTrobe in her novel Between the Acts (1941). A play by David Hare, to premiere in 2025 and starring Ralph Fiennes as Henry Irving, Grace Pervades, explores the life of Irving, Terry, Craig and her brother Edward. "Ralph Fiennes / Theatre Royal Bath season announced for 2025 including new David Hare play Grace Pervades & As You Like It starring Gloria Obianyo & Harriet Walter", West End Theatre, 26 March 2024
Personal life and death
Early in life, Craig had two heterosexual relationships. The composer Martin Shaw proposed to Craig in 1903, and she accepted. However, the marriage was prevented by Terry and by Christabel Marshall, who wrote under the pseudonym Christopher St. John, with whom Craig lived from 1899 until they were joined in 1916 by the artist Clare Atwood, living in a ménage à trois until Craig's death in 1947. Her lesbianism was not supported by her family. Craig became involved in several books about her mother and Shaw, which created a rift in her relationship with her brother, who asked Craig not to write about their mother, and specifically not to share the details of the family's innermost problems. Edward's book Ellen Terry and her Secret Self (1931) explicitly objected to Ellen Terry and Bernard Shaw: a Correspondence (1931) edited by Christopher St. John. In 1932 Craig co-edited with St. John Ellen Terry's Memoirs in which she replied to her brother's representation of their mother. Also in 1932 Craig adopted Ruby Chelta Craig.Cockin (1998), p. 167 Craig was reconciled with her brother some time before her death.
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Categories: 1869 Births, 1947 Deaths, 20th-century English Actresses, English Stage Actresses, English Film Actresses, English Silent Film Actresses, British Theatre Directors, British Women Theatre Directors, British Theatre Managers And Producers, British Women Theatre Managers And Producers, English Suffragists, People From Tenterden, British Lesbian Actresses, English Lgbtq Actors, Alumni Of The Royal Academy Of Music, Deaths From Coronary Thrombosis, Actresses From Kent, Terry Family, Actors From The Borough Of Ashford, British Women Civil Rights Activists
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