Annie Besant
British socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator (1847-1933)
Annie Besant (; née Wood; 1 October 1847 – 20 September 1933) 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.
She got the position of a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society (NSS), as well as a writer, and a close friend of Charles Bradlaugh. In 1877 they were prosecuted for publishing a book by birth control campaigner Charles Knowlton. Thereafter, she became involved with union actions, including the Bloody Sunday demonstration and the London matchgirls strike of 1888. She was a leading speaker for both the Fabian Society and the Marxist Social Democratic Federation (SDF). She was also elected to the London School Board for Tower Hamlets, topping the poll, even though few women were qualified to vote at that time.
In 1890 Besant met Helena Blavatsky, and over the next few years her interest in theosophy grew, whilst her interest in secular matters waned. She became a member of the Theosophical Society and a prominent lecturer on the subject.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Annie Besant” as british socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator (1847-1933). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british socialist, theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator (1847-1933). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q464318. VIAF identifies the subject as 68925562. The Library of Congress control number is n50011124. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1847, 1933, 1917 and 1877.
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This entry incorporates text from “Annie Besant” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.