1. Annie Besant was a British socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights and Home Rule activist, educationist and campaigner for Indian nationalism.
81 Facts About Annie Besant
1. 2.
Annie Besant was an ardent supporter of both Irish and Indian self-rule.
3.
Annie Besant became the first female president of the Indian National Congress in 1917.
4.
Annie Besant became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society, as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh.
5.
Annie Besant was a leading speaker for both the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation.
6.
Annie Besant was elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll, even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.
7.
In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular matters waned.
8.
Annie Besant became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject.
9.
Annie Besant became involved in politics in India, joining the Indian National Congress.
10.
Annie Besant Wood was born on 1 October 1847 in London, the daughter of William Burton Persse Wood and his wife Emily Roche Morris.
11.
Annie Besant's father was English, attended Trinity College Dublin, and attained a medical degree; her mother was an Irish Catholic.
12.
Annie Besant's paternal grandfather Robert Wright Wood was a brother of Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet.
13.
Annie Besant's mother supported Henry's education at Harrow School, by running a boarding house there.
14.
Annie Besant was fostered by Ellen Marryat, sister of the author Frederick Marryat, who ran a school at Charmouth, until age 16.
15.
Annie Besant returned to her mother at Harrow self-confident, aware of a sense of duty to society, and under the influence of the Tractarians.
16.
The Rev Frank Annie Besant was a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, ordained priest in 1866, but had no living: in 1866 he was teaching at Stockwell Grammar School as second master, and in 1867 he moved to teach at Cheltenham College as assistant master.
17.
Annie Besant was sure a third child would impose too much on the family finances.
18.
Annie Besant wrote short stories, books for children, and articles, the money she earned being controlled by her husband.
19.
Annie Besant began to question her own faith, after her daughter Mabel was seriously ill in 1871.
20.
Annie Besant consulted Edward Bouverie Pusey: by post he gave her advice along orthodox, Bampton Lecture lines, and in person he sharply reprimanded her unorthodox theological tendencies.
21.
Annie Besant attended in London, with her mother, a service at St George's Hall given by the heterodox cleric Charles Voysey, in autumn 1871, and struck up an acquaintance with the Voyseys, reading in "theistic" authors such as Theodore Parker and Francis Newman on Voysey's recommendation.
22.
The tension came to a head when Annie Besant refused to attend Communion, which Frank Besant demanded, now fearing for his own reputation and position in the Church.
23.
Annie Besant had a temporary place to stay, with Moncure Conway.
24.
The couple were legally separated and Annie Besant took her daughter Mabel with her, the agreement of 25 October 1873 giving her custody.
25.
In 1878 Frank Besant successfully argued her unfitness, after Annie Besant's public campaigning on contraception, and had custody from then of both children.
26.
Later, Annie Besant was reconciled with her son and daughter.
27.
Annie Besant began in 1874 to write for the National Reformer, the organ of the National Secular Society, run by Charles Bradlaugh.
28.
Annie Besant continued to write for Thomas Scott's small press.
29.
Annie Besant wrote to Bradlaugh and was accepted as an NSS member.
30.
Annie Besant first heard him speak on 2 August 1874.
31.
Annie Besant was a prolific writer and a powerful orator.
32.
Annie Besant addressed causes including freedom of thought, women's rights, secularism, birth control, Fabian socialism and workers' rights.
33.
Annie Besant was then instrumental in founding the Malthusian League, reviving a name coined earlier by Bradlaugh.
34.
Annie Besant did advocate population control as an antidote to the struggle for survival.
35.
Annie Besant became the secretary of the League, with Charles Robert Drysdale as President.
36.
Annie Besant was a leading member of the National Secular Society alongside Charles Bradlaugh.
37.
Annie Besant attacked the status of the Church of England as established church.
38.
Annie Besant was an individualist and opposed to socialism in any form.
39.
Meanwhile, Annie Besant built close contacts with the Irish Home Rulers and supported them in her newspaper columns during what are considered crucial years, when the Irish nationalists were forming an alliance with Liberals and Radicals.
40.
Annie Besant met the leaders of the Irish home rule movement.
41.
Annie Besant spoke and wrote in favour of Davitt and his Land League many times over the coming decades.
42.
Annie Besant made an abrupt public change in her political views, at the 1885 New Year's Day meeting of the London Dialectical Society, founded by Joseph Hiam Levy to promote individualist views.
43.
George Bernard Shaw was the speaker on 1 January 1885, talking on socialism, but, instead of the expected criticism from Annie Besant, he saw her opposing his opponent.
44.
Many were hurt, one man died, and hundreds were arrested; Annie Besant offered herself for arrest, an offer disregarded by the police.
45.
Annie Besant threw herself into organising legal aid for the jailed workers and support for their families.
46.
Annie Besant was drawn further into this battle of the "New Unionism" by a young socialist, Herbert Burrows, who had made contact with workers at the factory, in Bow.
47.
Annie Besant remained a member for a number of years and became one of its leading speakers.
48.
Annie Besant was still a member of the Fabian Society, the two movements being compatible at the time.
49.
Annie Besant was elected to the London School Board in 1888.
50.
Annie Besant drove about with a red ribbon in her hair, speaking at meetings.
51.
Annie Besant frequented the home of Richard and Emmeline Pankhurst on Russell Square, and Emmeline had participated in the matchgirl organisation.
52.
Annie Besant came out on top of the poll in Tower Hamlets, with over 15,000 votes.
53.
Financial constraints meant that Annie Besant closed down both Our Corner and The Link at the end of 1888.
54.
Annie Besant was further involved in the London dock strike of 1889.
55.
Annie Besant helped Tillett draw up the union's rules and played an important part in the meetings and agitation which built up the organisation.
56.
Annie Besant spoke for the dockers at public meetings and on street corners.
57.
Annie Besant allowed her membership of the Fabian Society to lapse and broke her links with the Marxists.
58.
Annie Besant had found the economic side of life lacking a spiritual dimension, so she searched for a belief based on "Love".
59.
Annie Besant found this in Theosophy, so she joined the Theosophical Society, a move that distanced her from Bradlaugh and other former activist co-workers.
60.
When Blavatsky died in 1891, Annie Besant was left as one of the leading figures in theosophy and in 1893 she represented it at the Chicago World Fair.
61.
The original society, then led by Henry Steel Olcott and Annie Besant, is today based in Chennai, India, and is known as the Theosophical Society Adyar.
62.
Annie Besant met fellow theosophist Charles Webster Leadbeater in London in April 1894.
63.
Leadbeater claimed clairvoyance and reputedly helped Annie Besant become clairvoyant herself in the following year.
64.
The next year Annie Besant became president of the society and in 1908, with her express support, Leadbeater was readmitted to the society.
65.
Leadbeater went on to face accusations of improper relations with boys, but none of the accusations were ever proven and Annie Besant never deserted him.
66.
Annie Besant set up a new school for boys, the Central Hindu College at Banaras which was formed on underlying theosophical principles, and which counted many prominent theosophists in its staff and faculty.
67.
Annie Besant soon became the boys' legal guardian with the consent of their father, who was very poor and could not take care of them.
68.
Annie Besant dissolved the Order of the Star in the East, an organisation founded to assist the World Teacher in his mission, and eventually left the Theosophical Society and theosophy at large.
69.
Annie Besant spent the rest of his life travelling the world as an unaffiliated speaker, becoming in the process widely known as an original, independent thinker on philosophical, psychological, and spiritual subjects.
70.
In 1916, Annie Besant launched the All India Home Rule League along with Lokmanya Tilak, modelling demands for India on Irish nationalist practices.
71.
In June 1917, Annie Besant was arrested and interned at a hill station, where she defiantly flew a red and green flag.
72.
The Congress and the Muslim League together threatened to launch protests if she were not set free; Annie Besant's arrest had created a focus for protest.
73.
Annie Besant was freed in September 1917, welcomed by crowds all over India, and in December she took over as president of the Indian National Congress for a year.
74.
Annie Besant was a lawyer who had returned from leading Asians in a peaceful struggle against racism in South Africa.
75.
Annie Besant produced a torrent of letters and articles demanding independence.
76.
Annie Besant tried as a person, theosophist, and president of the Theosophical Society, to accommodate Krishnamurti's views into her life, without success; she vowed to personally follow him in his new direction although she apparently had trouble understanding both his motives and his new message.
77.
Annie Besant died on 20 September 1933, at age 85, in Adyar, Madras Presidency, British India.
78.
In Chennai, a residential neighborhood, Besant Nagar, and an urban park, the Dr Annie Besant Park, have been named in her honor.
79.
Besides being a prolific writer, Annie Besant was a "practised stump orator" who gave sixty-six public lectures in one year.
80.
Annie Besant appears as a character in the children's novel Billy and the Match Girl by Paul Haston, about the matchgirls' strike.
81.
In 2016, an exhibition called Intention to Know, focusing on Annie Besant's "thought forms", was curated at the Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago.