Annie Besant

Annie Besant (1847–1933) was an English writer, orator and reformer. Separated from her clergyman husband, she became a secularist and birth-control advocate alongside Charles Bradlaugh, a Fabian socialist and a trade-union organizer who led the London matchgirls' strike of 1888. In 1889 she converted to theosophy under Madame Blavatsky, and from 1907 until her death she was president of the Theosophical Society, based at Adyar near Madras. She founded schools in India, campaigned for Indian self-government, was interned by the British in 1917 and the same year was elected president of the Indian National Congress. Esoteric Christianity (1901) is one of her many theosophical works.