MRS. ANNIE BESANT.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 175, 18 April 1908, Page 11

MRS. ANNIE BESANT.

COMING.TO/NEW ZEALAND. 'i-\Vord has.been;rcceived;in ,Wellington that Mrs.- Annie .Besant,' the -newly-elected president of the Thepsophical Society, will- lecture in; the principal cities-of-Australasia an 'the near future. ; Mrs.'Bbsant will probably leave Sydney for Wellingtoil'.about the.end.' of. July or ,the begimiing of August,' and will deliver several lectures in.Wellington. :

- ■ It. is a .dozen years or more since Mrs.: Annie Besant,' thon in , the., height 'of her fame and po\yer, : ; visited' New Zealand,j arid '.those';.who met her : then have the imprcs'Bipn .produced' ilpon. them by - her vivid personality and : the chahn • pi her oratory. Hors has been a strahgo career. JBorn in 1847, and educated privately iti-tlngland, Germany, and France,'> she' married at,; the ago of twenty the Kov. I 1 rank Besant, vicar of a Lincolnshire parish, . from whom; sis years' later, she secured ■ a legal separation., They' had- two children;. a son and daughter. The-year after, her-separation'.she joined the National-Secular Society;,and worked in the Freo /Thought aiid Radical' movement led by .Charles Bradlaugh. -She threw in "her lot with .the Socialists, and was .one of the; leaders; of:, the groat inatch . strike, , and a prominent, tradesunion worker,' and' served a tarm on'the; London School Board. "Sixteen years after she had. struck out; on 1 a carce rof her own she joined tho Thcosophicai Society,, bccoming oho of .the most devoted followers of the, famous -Madame Blavatsky, arid visiting all parts of the world in tho interests of her-new cause. To Mrs; Besant's /efforts two colleges and. a university 'in; India Owe their foundation,, and in addition to' the vast amount'ofiplatform;,work she has done she vhas; published very many;, books during the last sixteen years j books/dealing:with the principles, and,tho. mysteries ~ot.her faith. '■