MRS ANNIE BESANT

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 252, 21 September 1933, Page 2

MRS ANNIE BESANT

DEATH IN INDIA. (United Press Association.—By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received September 21, 10.5 a.m. CALCUTTA, Sept. 20. Mrs Annie Besant, the famous theorophist, has passed away at Madras. The death of Mrs Annie Besant, who was born on October 1, 1847, removes the most remarkable woman of her time. An ardent reformer during the ’seventies and ’eighties of last century, her work in those years has largely passed out of sight, but she has lived to see the causes, for which sho had to fight and suffer, either granted a tolerant hearing or accepted as the natural conditions of the new generation. Her public life had begun at the age of 26, when an unhappy marriage was dissolved by legal separation. Several years of struggle with religious doubts ended in her joining the National Secular Society and lecturing for them. She contributed regularly to the National Reformer, and became co-editor of that paper. She also published a sixpenny magazine of her own, Our Corner, which survived for six years. In addition to her ceaseless public work she continued her studies and became a qualified science*teacher. From 1886 she became doubtful whether her philosophy embraced all the facts, and she studied psychology, multiple personality, hypnotism and spiritualism, but without any settled convicition. In 1889 Mr AY. T. Stead handed her two volumes of Madam Blavatsky’s “Secret Doctrine” to be reviewed, and in reading these “all her puzzles disappeared.” She passed, as she says, “from storm to peace,” and in joining the Theosophical Society (1889) entered upon the second half of her career in quite knew conditions. In 1907 she became president of the society, an office which she held until her death. Her first visit to the East was made in 1893, when she travelled 15,000 miles in India and delivered 121 lectures to approximately 100,000 persons. After settling in India she continued her lecturing tours on this scale, repeatedly visiting England, America and Europe, lecturing in ■ French when necessary. She toured Australia three times, and New Zealand twice (1894 and 1908), speaking everywhere to crowded audiences. She edited a monthly magazine, also a weekly newspaper, New India. She studied Sanscrit and made translations therefrom. Her literary output was very large and always of a high ethical tendency. Mr Besterman’s bibliography of her works gives 326 publications. A New Zealand library has over 80 bound volumes. In India she was a pioneer in the cause of education, founding the Central Hindu College (now the Benares Hindu University), also the Women’s Indian Association, many of whose'members have qualified for important public offices. She initiated the Boy Scout movement in India and was appointed Honorary Scout Commissioner for all India by General Baden-Powell, who lately sent her the Silver Wolf Badge. Finally she organised the National Board of Education, and in 1922 the degree of Doctor of Letters was conferred upon her by the Hindu University in recognition of her great services to education in India.

When past the age of 80 she visited twelve countries in Europe, travelling usually by aeroplane, and when 82 she conducted an intensive lecturing campaign in England, afterwards crossing the Atlantic to preside at a large congress in Chicago. Her last years were spent in retirement at Advar, near Madras, as her voice weakened and her physical strength slowly declined. She lived to see her desire nearing achievement, with the British Parliament framing a new constitution for India as a self-governing State within the British Empire.