Cissie Grahame

Cissie Grahame was the stage name of Sarah Collett Gibson whose birth was registered at Wolverhampton in April-June 1862. Her son William Allen, in 'The History of a Family Firm 1857-1957' (London: John Murray, 1957), identified her parents as Mary Gibson and Thomas Phinn (1812-1866), QC and sometime MP for Bath, although Sarah may have been illegitimate. On 1 January 1887 the 24-year-old Sarah Collett Grahame, married Edward George Saunders, a solicitor, at Fulham Register Office. Sarah obtained a divorce in 1897 on the grounds of her husband’s adultery and cruelty towards her. Sarah next married William Edward Allen at Chelsea on 21 April 1898. He ran a printing business specialising in the printing of theatrical posters. They had three sons. They had a house in the country called Commonwood House, Chipperfield, Hertfordshire where William died on 12 April 1919. Sarah’s mother Mary died on 19 January 1931, and Sarah herself died on 15 April 1944. She had apparently written 'A Theatrical Marriage' by the end of 1915 although it is difficult to ascertain whether this is the same play that was licensed to be performed seventeen months later.