37 Facts About Christabel Russell

Christabel Russell, born Christabel Hulme Hart, started a successful fashionable dress shop in London in 1920.

Christabel Russell designed the dresses herself and the business expanded to employ nearly forty staff.

Christabel Russell went on to become an accomplished horsewoman and in later life took to travelling the world.

Christabel Russell gave birth to a son shortly before the first case came to court.

Medical evidence was given that despite her pregnancy she was still a virgin and John Christabel Russell sought to prove he could not have been the father because he had never succeeded in having intercourse with his wife.

Christabel Russell spoke of "Hunnish scenes" in the bedroom on one of the rare occasions they shared a bed.

Christabel Russell Hulme Hart was born on 22 June 1895 to John Hart, colonel of the Leinster Regiment, and Blanche Hart.

Christabel Russell started her childhood at Tadley in Hampshire but the family soon moved to Swallowfield in Berkshire.

Christabel Russell's elder sister Gwnydd had been born in 1894 and the girls were taught at home by a governess though Christabel received most of her education from her father.

Christabel Russell learned to ride at the age of five and by the age of six could gallop on horseback away from her parents while fox hunting.

Christabel Russell claimed never to have been in love or to have had any romantic involvements.

Christabel Russell was "exceedingly unconventional": driving a car and motorcycle and flying an aircraft.

Hundreds of letters arrived in reply and, after rejecting all who had not enclosed a photograph, the officers selected Christabel Russell and arranged to meet her in London.

For ten days the foursome dined and went to nightclubs for which one of the officers, John Christabel Russell paid for all the expenses.

The Russells moved to a small house in Chelsea and, with John mostly away on submarine duties, Christabel resumed her extensive socialising but without the awkwardness of marriage proposals.

At the time of their marriage, John Russell did not dance or visit nightclubs, which Christabel did all the time.

Christabel Russell published a novel Afraid of Love in 1925 with strong autobiographical overtones.

Christabel Russell continued in charge of the dress shop for almost forty years while it remained highly successful.

On 17 June 1921 at a session with a clairvoyant, Christabel Russell was told to her astonishment she was five months pregnant.

Lady Ampthill greeted her son's paternity with disbelief and succeeded in persuading Russell that he could not be the father and that Christabel must have been unfaithful to him.

The court case could not commence for almost a year and on 15 October 1921 Christabel Russell gave birth to a boy who was named Geoffrey.

Christabel Russell wrote to her husband, adamant the child could only be his and hoping to restore the marriage, but Russell did not reply.

The dress shop thrived, partly on account of curious customers but Christabel Russell accepted her solicitors' advice not to be seen out alone with any man.

Christabel Russell's parents hired a very strong legal team including Sir John Simon and Douglas Hogg.

One witness said that Christabel Russell had spoken to her of becoming pregnant through "Hunnish scenes" in the bedroom.

Christabel Russell was asked under cross-examination about the "Hunnish scenes" and she said these referred to occasions of "incomplete relations".

In 1923 John Christabel Russell brought a second divorce case with amended grounds, with Sir Edward Marshall Hall as counsel, claiming that, in addition, his wife had frequently committed adultery with Edgar Mayer.

Under cross-examination Christabel Russell said that at the time of her marriage she did not know what intercourse was but she did know that men were physically different from women because she had been an art student and had studied anatomy from the age of twelve.

Christabel Russell then appealed to House of Lords in 1924 where five law lords heard the case: lords Finlay, Birkenhead, Dunedin, Carson and Sumner.

In 1935 John Russell's father, the 2nd Lord Ampthill, died so Christabel became Lady Ampthill whereupon she petitioned for divorce, which became absolute in 1937.

Nancy Mitford, in writing The Pursuit of Love in 1945, referred to "the Christabel Russell case" assuming her readers would still at least have heard of it.

In 1957 Christabel Russell emigrated to County Meath in Ireland where she became Master of the Ballymacaid Hunt before moving to live in Dunguaire Castle in County Galway which she purchased from Oliver St John Gogarty.

Christabel Russell regularly rode with several fox hunts so she could hunt seven days a week when she chose, riding sidesaddle and wearing a beaver hat and riding habit.

Christabel Russell befriended the five or six year old Anjelica Huston, and took her riding and hunting.

John Russell died in 1973 and the press announced that his son with Christabel, Geoffrey Russell, would succeed to the peerage.

At the time this news broke Christabel Russell was in Australia as part of travelling solo around the world so she started to drive back to England in her car.

Christabel Russell died of a massive stroke in a Galway hospital on 16 February 1976, exactly a week before the hearings began.