Feminist, political activist, politician in India.

1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933

(born Annie Wood)

‘Many women now, educated more highly than they used to be — women with strong brains and loving hearts — are being driven into bitterness and into angry opposition, because their ambition is thwarted at every step, and their eager longing for a fuller life are forced back and crushed. A tree will grow, however you may try to stunt it. You may disfigure it, you may force it into awkward shapes, but grow it will.’

Annie Besant, The Political Status of Women (1874).

A Tribute by Chloe Wilson

Early Life

Annie Wood emerged promptly on 1 October 1847 into the City of London and a childhood guided by independent women: her widowed mother, and tutor Miss Ellen Marryat, who equipped Annie with an evangelical understanding of the world. In 1867, at age 20 Annie cemented this commitment with marriage to the Reverend Frank Besant, with whom she had two children: Arthur Digby and Mabel, born in 1869 and 1870 respectively.

Annie’s religiosity had to this point satisfied what would become a lifelong pilgrimage for truth, but as wife and mother, Annie’s acceptance of religious doctrine, manifested in societal expectation and the legal system, began to disintegrate. As well as carrying out the philanthropic duties of a clergyman’s wife, Annie began writing short stories to supplement the family income but was incensed that, by law, proceeds from this work were controlled exclusively by her husband. By 1873, her disillusionment was complete and in Annie’s own words ‘my marriage tie was broken’. Annie returned to London from Lincolnshire where she had lived as wife, taking three-year-old Mabel with her.

Enter Politics

Besant is recognised by English Heritage as a ‘Social Reformer’ which is the title afforded her blue plaque at 39 Colby Road, London, SE19 1HA which had been her London address in 1874 where she commanded an all-woman household with her mother, daughter, and maid.

Stimulated by her own experiences as a young, married woman in Victorian Britain, in the same year Annie delivered her first public lecture in the Cooperative Hall, 55 Castle Street, East London: On The Political Status Of Women.

‘This was my first lecture in any public hall, and a feeling of loyalty to my own sex made me determine that my first speech should be dedicated to the assertion of its rights; and I, therefore, chose as my subject, “The Political Status of Women.”’

The later publication of this speech as a pamphlet has preserved this triumph, the full text of which can still be accessed within The British Library. The sex-based sufferings that propelled her into the public sphere of political discourse are distressingly evident in her address:

‘We will win the right of representation in Parliament, and when we have won that, these laws will be altered…There will no longer be a law that women, on marriage, become paupers…There will no longer be a law…which enables the father to take the child from the mother’s arms…There will no longer be a law which sanctions the consignment of thousands of women to misery and despair.’

She challenges the weaknesses laid against women by patriarchal law and society and raises up the achievements of her female contemporaries to expose the farce of ‘biological’ arguments: ‘Mary Somerville, Mrs Lewes (better known as George Eliot), Frances Power Cobbe, Harriet Martineau, were made, I suppose, when nature was asleep’.

Secularism and Socialism

Whilst living on Colby Road Annie made the acquaintance of Charles Bradlaugh (1833-1891), notorious activist and atheist who had founded the National Secular Society (NSS) in 1866 and would go on to election as Liberal MP for Northampton in 1880. Following a series of successful public lectures on moral and political subjects across London, Annie began writing for Bradlaugh’s secularist publication, the National Reformer which she would also later co-edit and co-own. 1875 saw her become Vice President for the NSS; a position she held until 1890.

Two years later Besant and Bradlaugh cemented their professional relationship further through co-founding the Freethought Publishing Company at 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.C; intended to promote the causes of secularism, social reform, and free thought. The most controversial of their publications was the recirculation of Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy, an 1835 treatise on birth control. Their resulting trial at London’s Old Bailey under the Obscene Publications Act (1857) proved the most successful advertisement of the pamphlet that they could have wished for. Besant continued to campaign for birth control in the service of the Malthusian League for which she had been the founding secretary and authored her own publication on the subject in 1878: The Law of Population.

The following year Besant studied a Bachelor’s degree at the Birkbeck Literary & Scientific Institution in Fetter Lane, Farringdon. She went on to found her own liberal journal Our Corner, published between 1883 and 1888, while 1885 saw her become more deeply embroiled within socialist politics through enrolment as an active member of the Fabian Society alongside Beatrice Webb.

Besant in Bloomsbury

Besant later lived in different boroughs across London including Paddington, Hampstead, and St John’s Wood, in properties which have all since been destroyed. The British Library’s Reading Room Register also places her in Bloomsbury during the 1880s, crossing paths with other prominent women of the day including: Amy Levy, Olive Schreiner, Margaret Harkness, Beatrix Potter, and Clementina Black. The Library proved not only an educational resource but also an opportune meeting place for these likeminded women. Besant took her education and connections from the west end to aid working class, impoverished women in the east end. She campaigned publicly against unemployment and in 1888, in partnership with Harkness and Black, worked to organise and support matchbox makers in the Bryant and May ‘Match Girls’ Strike’. The strike is the event for which she has become most famous, which successfully led to improved wages for the women and the formation of the Matchmakers Union.

As a member of the Social Democratic Federation (alongside Eleanor Marx) in 1888 Besant was elected as candidate to the London School Board in Tower Hamlets which she served until 1891. In this position Besant played an instrumental role in abolishing fess for board schools as well as implementing provision for free school dinners and medical examinations.

During this time Annie was asked by Pall Mall Gazette editor W. T. Stead to review Madame H P Blavatsky’s tract on Theosophy: The Secret Doctrine. Captivated by its contents, Annie met with Blavatsky and became her pupil, having finally found, on her quest for truth, ‘the glory of my life’.

India

Beyond the conclusion of Annie’s autobiography, in 1893 Annie’s Theosophical beliefs led her to India where she campaigned for women’s rights and established the Indian Home Rule League. She also became the first woman president of the Indian National Congress in 1917. Her commitment to India’s education system was rewarded with the Doctor of Letters in 1921 and she held the position of International President of the Theosophical Society from 1907 until her death in 1933.  Alongside this long career of activism Annie wrote prolifically and contributed to public discourse in both Britain and India on a vast array of topics.

Death and Legacy

Annie Besant [née Wood] died on 20 September 1933 in Madras, India, aged 84. Like other ‘infamous’ women of the nineteenth century, Annie suffered heavily for her choices and it was ‘[…]with a great price [that] I had obtained my freedom’. Annie was not idle in that freedom and campaigned for sixty years to liberate others bound by sex and class; fighting with intellect, drive, and compassion developed over a lifetime’s search for equality and truth.

Further reading

List of published and unpublished works by Annie Besant

Bernstein, Susan. (2011) ‘Reading Room Geographies of Late-Victoria London: The British Museum, Bloomsbury and the People’s Palace, Mile End’, Interdisciplinary Studies in the Long Nineteenth Century, 13. Available at: https://19.bbk.ac.uk/article/id/1660/

Besant, Annie. (1893) Annie Besant: an autobiography, 2nd edn. Internet Archive. Available at: https://archive.org/details/anniebesantautob00besaiala/page/n7/mode/2up

Besant, Annie. (1874) On The Political Status Of Women. Available at: https://access.bl.uk/item/viewer/ark:/81055/vdc_100049728565.0x000001#?c=0&m=0&s=0&cv=7&xywh=-251%2C0%2C3236%2C2081

Besant, Annie. (1878) The Law of Population. Available at: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Law_of_Population.html?id=D1nVAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y

English Heritage. (n.d.)Besant, Annie (1847-1933). https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/visit/blue-plaques/annie-besant/

Wilson, Chloe. (2020) Annie Besant: ‘[a] stormy, public, much attacked and slandered life’, East End Women’s Museum. Available at: https://eastendwomensmuseum.org/blog/annie-besant-a-stormy-public-much-attacked-and-slandered-life

Chloe Wilson (she/her) is a Gender Studies graduate from University College London with specialist interest in women’s and gender history. She works in archive and museum preventive conservation and volunteers for the East End Women’s Museum and the Vagina Museum.

MINI BIOGRAPHY

Education

1856 Responsibility for her upbringing and education taken by Ellen Marryat after her widowed mother took on looking after boarders at Harrow School to earn a living.

1879 Studied for a B.A. at the Birkbeck Literary & Scientific Institution passing the exams but came into conflict with the College Governors over her freethinking attitude and ‘immoral’ social work.

Some Key Achievements and Interests

1875 Elected vice-president of the National Secular Society (position held until 1890).

Became writer and co-editor then co-owner of National Reformer.

Founded and ran the Freethought Publishing Company with Bradlaugh.

1877 Joined Charles Bradlaugh in re-publishing Fruits of Philosophy a controversial pamphlet on the physiology of contraception by Charles Knowlton 1832. She and Bradlaugh were taken to court for issuing ‘obscene libel’ and defended themselves. Besant defended the cause of population control and contraceptive checks standing before all male jury. Initially convicted, they won on appeal. Widespread publicity for contraception.

Published manual on ways to limit family size.

Instrumental in the founding of the Malthusian League during the trial.

Campaigned for birth control, women’s rights and better education, Fabian socialism.

1885 Joined the Fabian Society where, for a time, she became an active member.

Quote:  ‘We work for the redemption of the poor, for the salvation of the wretched; the cause of the people is the sacredness of all causes, and is the one which is the most certain to triumph, however sharp may be the struggle for victory.’  London Freethought Publishing Company 1887  Rights for Women | Senate House Library

1887 Led a demonstration against unemployment in Trafalgar Square.

1888 Helped organise the Match Girls’ Strike.

Nov 1888 Elected to London School Board.

1883-1888 Owned and edited Our Corner, a liberal monthly magazine.

1889 Joined the Theosophical Society and became a leading member, then, in 1907, President.

Campaigned for Irish Home Rule, rights of Indians and for Indian home rule.

1893 Moved to India joining the Indian National Congress.

1907-1933 International President of the Theosophical Society. 

1916 Established Indian Home Rule League becoming its first president actively promoting self-rule for India.

1917 Became first woman president of the Indian National Congress at a session in Calcutta.

Issues

An unhappy childhood with death of father and mother left with limited means.

As a married women the money she earned from her writing was collected by her husband denying her the independence she wanted.

Came into conflict with her husband over their radically opposed politics and her increasingly anti-religious views.

Ordered to leave the family home by her husband.

Legally separated 1873 but he retained custody of their son, and later their daughter. The scandals involved in her trial and publication of manual led to her losing custody of both children.

Held many views controversial at the time.

Connection to Bloomsbury

Networked with other women at the British Museum Reading Room.

Female networks

Madame Blavatsky, co-founder of the Theosophical Society.

Clementina Black and other women she networked with in the British Museum Reading Room.

Mona Caird

Writing/publications include

1877 republishing of Dr Charles Knowlton’s Fruits of Philosophy 1832 https://archive.org/details/fruitsphilosoph00knogoog 

1889 Why I Became a Theosophist

1893 An Autobiography 

https://archive.org/details/anniebesantautob00besaiala/page/n7/mode/2up

1918 The Case for India [Congress Presidential Address, December 1917]

see: “Besant, Annie, 1847-1933. | Catalogue search | Wellcome Collection