Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Annie Besant
-
Standard Name: Besant, Annie
Birth Name: Annie Wood
Married Name: Annie Besant
Pseudonym: Ajax
Used Form: the wife of a beneficed clergyman
AB
is known primarily for two streams of non-fiction writing, one concerning birth control and the other the Theosophist movement. However, this omits much of the remarkable output whose topics ranged from women's rights and religion to politics and science; only a small selection from over one hundred pamphlets, lectures, and essays can be discussed here.
Shattock, Joanne. The Oxford Guide to British Women Writers. Oxford University Press, 1993.
She often pursued various topics simultaneously. For example, during 1878 and 1879 while she was trying to regain custody of her children, she was also organising her writings on the French Revolution; translating a book from French; keeping up with her weekly journalism; producing pamphlets on atheism, republicanism, India and Ireland; sitting on committees; and, of course, continuing to lecture.
Dinnage, Rosemary. Annie Besant. Penguin, 1986.
48-9
As well as such often controversial writings, AB
published short fiction.
"Annie Besant" Retrieved from https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/43/Annie_Besant_in_1897.JPG.This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license. This work is in the public domain.
She converted to Catholicism
less than a year after her husband's death, which made her a co-religionist of those she now set out to help.
Linklater, Andro. An Unhusbanded Life. Hutchinson, 1980.
63
Around 1909, after attending a series of lectures by...
Cultural formation
Rose Allatini
RA
(who was probably brought up in the Jewish faith) became known as an Occultist. Higher Occultism was connected to the Theosophical Movement, which was inspired by two Indian High Initiates known as Master Koot Hoomi
Cultural formation
Mary Gawthorpe
MG
begins her autobiography with her local identity: I was Yorkshire born. My forebears, grandparents maternal and paternal, were all born in Yorkshire, in Leeds so far as I know.
Gawthorpe, Mary. Up Hill to Holloway. Traversity Press, 1962.
7
Born English therefore, she...
Family and Intimate relationships
Anna Wickham
After AW
's marriage, Alice Harper returned to London briefly and opened a physiognomy parlour in Regent Street. She also became involved in Annie Besant
's Theosophist movement.
Hepburn, James, Anna Wickham, and James Hepburn. “Anna Wickham: A Memoir”. The Writings of Anna Wickham, Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, pp. 1 - 48.
12
Wickham, Anna, James Hepburn, and James Hepburn. “Fragment of an Autobiography: Prelude to a Spring Clean”. The Writings of Anna Wickham Free Woman and Poet, edited by Reginald Donald Smith, Virago Press, 1984, pp. 51 - 157.
146
A portrait of Alice...
Family and Intimate relationships
Ella Wheeler Wilcox
He had promised her a message from the next world, and his death precipitated her into an anxious search. She travelled to California and read avidly in spiritualist books by Sir Oliver Lodge
, Annie Besant
Family and Intimate relationships
Katharine Bruce Glasier
KBG
was devastated by her husband's death, but later she began to experience visions of his continuing presence (as she did of her son's presence after he too died).
Kelly, Gary, and Edd Applegate, editors. Dictionary of Literary Biography 190. Gale Research, 1998.
190:125
Glasier, Katharine Bruce. The Glen Book. London.
79
John Bruce Glasier had...
Family and Intimate relationships
Sir Walter Besant
Annie Besant
became his sister-in-law through her marriage to his brother Frank
in 1867.
Family and Intimate relationships
Muriel Box
MB
's mother was christened Caroline Beatrice (Doney) but known as Bertie.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray, Brian Harrison, and Lawrence Goldman, editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
Box, Muriel. Odd Woman Out. Leslie Frewin, 1974.
14, 16
She was a woman of passion, of deep-rooted prejudices, capable of violent outbursts of temper when her will was crossed. She...
Family and Intimate relationships
Florence Marryat
FM
's aunt Ellen Marryat
was a significant influence on the education of Annie Woods (later Annie Besant
).
Friends, Associates
Emma Frances Brooke
EFB
's involvement with the socialist and feminist movements of the day brought her into close contact with several notable activists and revolutionaries. Through the Fabian Society
, she interacted with Beatrice
and Sidney Webb
Joseph Henry Parker
took over his uncle's Oxford bookselling and publishing business; as J. H. Parker
it soon became the foremost publisher of the Oxford or Tractarian Movement.
2 May 1857
A grand dome designed by Panizzi
was opened in what had been the central courtyard of the British Museum
.
25 August 1857
The Obscene Publications Act allowed for the censorship of pornographic materials entering Britain.
18 September 1867
Fenians
staged an attack in Manchester on a police van to gain the release of two Fenian prisoners who were arrested the week before; a policeman was killed. Later five men were tried for murder...
April 1873
The Custody of Infants Act made provision for women separating from their husbands to be awarded custody of children up to the age of sixteen.
February 1878
The acquittal of Charles Bradlaugh
and Annie Besant
in their famous obscenity trial meant that distribution of birth control information was no longer illegal.
9 July 1885
Karl Pearson
(then a solemn, rationalist young barrister) held the first meeting of a society designed to talk about sex in a spirit of high seriousness and sense of intellectual adventure:
Walkowitz, Judith R. “Science, Feminism and Romance: The Men and Women’s Club 1885-1889”. History Workshop Journal, No. 1, pp. 36 -59.
A famous meeting of the Fabian Society
resolved that it was desirable for socialists to form a politial party; this was the first germ of the Labour Party
.
Police broke up a meeting of the Social Democratic Federation
(militant radicals, many of them Irish) held in Trafalgar Square, London; the day became known as Bloody Sunday.
4 February 1888
Annie Besant
and W.T. Stead
edited the first weekly issue of The Link: A Journal for the Servants of Man / Law and Liberty League, published in London.
July 1888
One thousand four hundred women workers at the Bryant and May
match factory in London went on strike, in protest against poor working conditions and low wages; this became known as the Match Girls (or...
12 August 1889
The London Dock Strike began; it aroused widespread sympathy for striking dockers.
1892
Sixty-seven year-old phrenologist Henry Loader
was prosecuted for selling two birth control manuals, The Wife's Handbook and Fruits of Philosophy.
28 March 1912
The Conciliation Bill (on suffrage) was defeated in a House of Commons
vote, after passing its second reading (the previous year) with a huge majority.
