“Ten years ago, under a cruel law, Christian bigotry robbed me of my little child. Now the care of the 763,680 children of London is placed partly in my hands.”
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Annie Besant
Annie Besant was an English socialist, theosophist, freemason, women's rights and activist, educationist, involved in women's rights, Home Rule, and Indian nationalism. She gave support to both Irish and Indian self-rule. She had been the first female president of the Indian National Congress in 1917.
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culture · English writer and activist (1847–1933) · essayist · writer · orator · journalist · editor · politician · feminist · theosophist · suffragist · women's rights activist · also Annie Besant, Annie Wood Besant, Mrs. Annie Besant, née Wood, Besant
Born 1 October 1847 · Died 20 September 1933 · Q464318
55 published statements · 0 followers
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2026· 3 entries
“I ask the electors to vote for me, and the non-electors to work for me because women are wanted on the Board and there are too few women candidates.”
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moneycontrol.com: Book Extract - The Nine Lives of Annie Besant: The Astonishing Story of a Victorian Rebel
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2025· 1 entry
Scroll: From the biography: How Annie Besant campaigned for trade unions and universal suffrage in England
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2023· 1 entry
Plans were announced to upgrade this college to a university called the Annie Besant University
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2021· 1 entry
The Hindu: When Annie Besant came to court
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2020· 1 entry
Daily Times: ‘Annie Besant’
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2017· 2 entries
Newsweek: Annie Besant and the Women Who Fight for Their Rights
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Deccan Chronicle: Annie Besant: Theosophist who inspired Indian nationalism
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2016· 1 entry
An exhibition called Intention to Know, focusing on Besant's "thought forms", was curated at the Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago
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2015· 1 entry
Hindustan Times: ‘I tried to follow truth’: A tribute to Annie besant
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2013· 1 entry
Indiatimes: The Annie Besant Group organizes the Fifth Annie Besant Award For Excellence in Education in Indore
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1933· 3 entries
Died 1933-09-20.
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Earned Silver Wolf Award (1933).
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“It is not monogamy when there is one legal wife, and mistresses out of sight.”
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1929· 1 entry
Twenty years after his "discovery", Krishnamurti, who had grown disenchanted with the World Teacher Project, repudiated the role that many theosophists expected him to fulfil
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1917· 1 entry
In Madanapalle is one of the oldest colleges in the Rayalaseema region of Andhra Pradesh, India
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1916· 1 entry
Besant launched the All India Home Rule League along with Lokmanya Tilak, once again modelling demands for India on Irish nationalist practices
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1914· 2 entries
Helped launch the Home Rule League to campaign for democracy in India, and dominion status within the British Empire
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World War I broke out, and Britain asked for the support of its Empire in the fight against Germany
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1909· 1 entry
Soon after Besant's assumption of the presidency, Leadbeater "discovered" fourteen-year-old Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986), a South Indian boy who had been living, with his father and brother, on the grounds of the headq
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1908· 1 entry
With her express support, Leadbeater was readmitted to the society
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1907· 1 entry
Became president of the Theosophical Society, whose international headquarters were, by then, located in Adyar, Madras (Chennai)
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1906· 1 entry
Leadbeater became the centre of controversy when it emerged that he had advised the practice of masturbation to some boys under his care and spiritual instruction
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1902· 3 entries
The International Order of Freemasonry for Men and Women, Le Droit Humain
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Established the first overseas Lodge of the International Order of Co-Freemasonry, Le Droit Humain
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By the theosophist Francesca Arundale, who accompanied Besant to Paris, along with six friends
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1898· 1 entry
Helped establish the Central Hindu School, and in 1922 she helped establish the Hyderabad (Sind) National Collegiate Board in Bombay (today's Mumbai), India
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1895· 2 entries
Won Subba Row Medal (1895).
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Together with the founder-president of the Theosophical Society, Henry Steel Olcott, as well as Marie Musaeus Higgins and Peter De Abrew, she was instrumental in developing the Buddhist school, Musaeus College, in Colomb
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1893· 2 entries
Soon after becoming a member of the Theosophical Society, she went to India for the first time
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Was a representative of The Theosophical Society at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago
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1891· 1 entry
Besant was left as one of the leading figures in theosophy and in 1893 she represented it at the Chicago World Fair
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1890· 1 entry
Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular matters waned
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1889· 2 entries
That the main purpose of establishing the society was to prepare humanity for the future reception of a "torch-bearer of Truth", an emissary of a hidden Spiritual Hierarchy that, according to theosophists, guides the evo
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Besant was asked to write a review for the Pall Mall Gazette on The Secret Doctrine, a book by H
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1888· 1 entry
Described herself as "marching toward the Theosophy" that would be the "glory" of her life
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1887· 3 entries
Some of the London unemployed started to hold protests in Trafalgar Square
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“Atheism and Its Bearing on Morals”
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“The Teachings of Christianity”
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1886· 4 entries
“Life, Death, and Immortality”
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And forming the Fabian Parliamentary League, with both Besant and Shaw on its Council which promoted political candidacy
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“The Myth of the Resurrection”
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“For the Crown and Against the Nation”
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1884· 1 entry
Announced he had become a socialist after five years close study, Besant argued that his politics over that whole period had been aligned with Bradlaugh's and her own
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1883· 3 entries
Besant started her own periodical, Our Corner
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“The Gospel of Christianity and the Gospel of Freethought”
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“s and her own. Aveling and Eleanor Marx joined the Social Democratic Federation, followers of Marxism, and then the Socialist League, a small Marxist splinter group which formed around the artist William Morris. In 1883 Besant started her own periodical, Our Corner. It was a literary and in time a socialist monthly, and published George Bernard Shaw”
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1878· 1 entry
Frank Besant successfully argued her unfitness, after Annie Besant's public campaigning on contraception, and had custody from then of both children
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1877· 1 entry
Were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton
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1874· 1 entry
To write for the National Reformer, the organ of the National Secular Society (NSS), run by Charles Bradlaugh
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1872· 2 entries
“the wife of a beneficed clergyman”
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Became vicar of Sibsey in Lincolnshire, a benefice in the gift of the Lord Chancellor—who was Lord Hatherley, a Wood family connection, son of Sir Matthew Wood, 1st Baronet
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1866· 1 entry
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
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1847· 1 entry
Born 1847-10-01.
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