Anna Kingsford (; 16 September 1846 – 22 February 1888), was an English

anti-vivisection Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for experimenta ...

ist,

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slaughter. Vegetariani ...

and

women's rights Women's rights are the rights and entitlements claimed for women and girls worldwide. They formed the basis for the women's rights movement in the 19th century and the feminist movements during the 20th and 21st centuries. In some countri ...

campaigner. She was one of the first English women to obtain a degree in medicine, after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, and the only medical student at the time to graduate without having experimented on a single animal. She pursued her degree in Paris, graduating in 1880 after six years of study, so that she could continue her animal advocacy from a position of authority. Her final thesis, ''L'Alimentation Végétale de l'Homme'', was on the benefits of vegetarianism, published in English as ''The Perfect Way in Diet'' (1881). She founded the Food Reform Society that year, travelling within the UK to talk about vegetarianism, and to Paris, Geneva, and Lausanne to speak out against animal experimentation. Kingsford was interested in

Buddhism Buddhism ( , ), also known as Buddha Dharma and Dharmavinaya (), is an Indian religion or philosophical tradition based on teachings attributed to the Buddha. It originated in northern India as a -movement in the 5th century BCE, and ...

and

Gnosticism Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

, and became active in the Theosophical movement in England, becoming president of the London Lodge of the

Theosophical Society The Theosophical Society, founded in 1875, is a worldwide body with the aim to advance the ideas of Theosophy in continuation of previous Theosophists, especially the Greek and Alexandrian Neo-Platonic philosophers dating back to 3rd century CE ...

in 1883. In 1884 she founded the Hermetic Society, which lasted until 1887 when her health declined. She said she received insights in trance-like states and in her sleep; these were collected from her manuscripts and pamphlets by her lifelong collaborator Edward Maitland, and published posthumously in the book, ''Clothed with the Sun'' (1889). Subject to ill-health all her life, she died of lung disease at the age of 41, brought on by a bout of pneumonia. Her writing was virtually unknown for over 100 years after Maitland published her biography, ''The Life of Anna Kingsford'' (1896), though Helen Rappaport wrote in 2001 that her life and work are once again being studied.Rappaport, Helen
"Kingsford, Anna
" ''Encyclopedia of Women Social Reformers'', 2001. *For Maitland's biography, see Maitland, Edward
''The Life of Anna Kingsford''
Kessinger Publishing, 2003 irst published 1896 also availabl
here

Early life

Kingsford was born in Maryland Point, Stratford, now part of east London but then in

Essex Essex () is a Ceremonial counties of England, county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the Riv ...

, to John Bonus, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Schröder. Her brother John Bonus (1828–1909) was a physician and vegetarian.Pert, Alan. (2007). ''Red Cactus: The Life of Anna Kingsford''. Books & Writers. p. 6, p. 114. Her brothers Henry (1830–1903) and Albert (1831–1884) worked for their father's shipping business. Her brother Edward (1834–1908) became rector of Hulcott in Buckinghamshire and her brother Joseph (1836–1926) was a major general. By all accounts a precocious child, she wrote her first poem when she was nine, and ''Beatrice: a Tale of the Early Christians'' when she was thirteen years old. Deborah Rudacille writes that Kingsford enjoyed foxhunting, until one day she reportedly had a vision of herself as the fox. Rudacille, pp. 33–34 According to Maitland she was a "born seer," with a gift "for seeing apparitions and divining the characters and fortunes of people", something she reportedly learned to keep silent about. She married her cousin, Algernon Godfrey Kingsford in 1867 when she was 21, giving birth to a daughter, Eadith, a year later. Though her husband was an

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of t ...

priest, she converted to

Roman Catholicism The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

in 1872. Kingsford contributed articles to the magazine " Penny Post" from 1868 to 1873. Having been left £700 a year by her father, she bought in 1872 ''The Lady's Own Paper'', and took up work as its editor, which brought her into contact with some prominent women of the day, including the writer, feminist, and anti-vivisectionist

Frances Power Cobbe Frances Power Cobbe (4 December 1822 – 5 April 1904) was an Anglo-Irish writer, philosopher, religious thinker, social reformer, anti- vivisection activist and leading women's suffrage campaigner. She founded a number of animal advocacy gro ...

. It was an article by Cobbe on vivisection in ''The Lady's Own Paper'' that sparked Kingsford's interest in the subject.

Studies and research

In 1873, Kingsford met the writer Edward Maitland, a widower, who shared her rejection of

materialism Materialism is a form of philosophical monism which holds matter to be the fundamental substance in nature, and all things, including mental states and consciousness, are results of material interactions. According to philosophical materialis ...

. With the blessing of Kingsford's husband, the two began to collaborate, Maitland accompanying her to Paris when she decided to study medicine. Paris was at that time the center of a revolution in the study of physiology, much of it as a result of experiments on animals, particularly dogs, and mostly conducted without

anaesthetic An anesthetic (American English) or anaesthetic (British English; see spelling differences) is a drug used to induce anesthesia ⁠— ⁠in other words, to result in a temporary loss of sensation or awareness. They may be divided into two ...

. Claude Bernard (1813–1878), described as the "father of physiology", was working there, and famously said that "the physiologist is not an ordinary man: he is a scientist, possessed and absorbed by the scientific idea he pursues. He does not hear the cries of the animals, he does not see their flowing blood, he sees nothing but his idea ..." Walter Gratzer, professor emeritus of biochemistry at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

, writes that significant opposition to vivisection emerged in Victorian England, in part in revulsion at the research being conducted in France.Gratzer, Walter. ''Eurekas and Euphorias: The Oxford Book of Scientific Anecdotes''. Oxford University Press, 2004, p. 224. Bernard and other well-known physiologists, such as

Charles Richet Charles Robert Richet (25 August 1850 – 4 December 1935) was a French physiologist at the Collège de France known for his pioneering work in immunology. In 1913, he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine "in recognition of his work ...

in France and Michael Foster in England, were strongly criticized for their work. British anti-vivisectionists infiltrated the lectures in Paris of

François Magendie __NOTOC__ François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a ''Magendie sign'', a downward an ...

, Bernard's teacher, who dissected dogs without anaesthesia, allegedly shouting at them — "Tais-toi, pauvre bête!" (''Shut up, you poor beast!'') — while he worked. Bernard's wife, Marie-Francoise Bernard, was violently opposed to his research, though she was financing it through her

dowry A dowry is a payment, such as property or money, paid by the bride's family to the groom or his family at the time of marriage. Dowry contrasts with the related concepts of bride price and dower. While bride price or bride service is a payment ...

. Rudacille, p. 19. In the end, she divorced him and set up an anti-vivisection society. This was the atmosphere in the faculty of medicine and the teaching hospitals in Paris when Kingsford arrived, shouldering the additional burden of being a woman. Although women were allowed to study medicine in France, Rudacille writes that they were not welcomed. Kingsford wrote to her husband in 1874: Kingsford was distraught over the sights and sounds of the animal experiments she saw. She wrote on 20 August 1879: Kingsford adopted a vegetarian diet on the advice of her brother John Bonus. She was a vice-president of the Vegetarian Society.

Death

Alan Pert, one of her biographers, wrote that Kingsford was caught in torrential rain in Paris in November 1886 on her way to the laboratory of

Louis Pasteur Louis Pasteur (, ; 27 December 1822 – 28 September 1895) was a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization, the latter of which was named afte ...

, one of the most prominent vivisectionists of the period. She reportedly spent hours in wet clothing and developed pneumonia, then

pulmonary tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...

.Pert, Alan
"Last Years"
''Red Cactus: The Life of Anna Kingsford'', accessed 30 April 2011. *Pert, Alan. ''The Life of Anna Kingsford'', 2006, pp. 156–169. She travelled to the Riviera and Italy, sometimes with Maitland, at other times with her husband, hoping in vain that a different climate would help her recover. In July 1887, she settled in London in a house she and her husband rented at 15 Wynnstay Gardens,

Kensington Kensington is a district in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea in the West of Central London. The district's commercial heart is Kensington High Street, running on an east–west axis. The north-east is taken up by Kensington Garden ...

, and waited to die, although she remained mentally active. She died on 22 February 1888, aged 41, and was buried in the churchyard of Saint Eata's, an 11th-century church in Atcham by the

River Severn , name_etymology = , image = SevernFromCastleCB.JPG , image_size = 288 , image_caption = The river seen from Shrewsbury Castle , map = RiverSevernMap.jpg , map_size = 288 , map_c ...

, her husband's church. Her name at death is recorded as Annie Kingsford. On her marriage in Sussex in 1867, her name was given as Annie Bonus.Public record office marriage and death registers, Kew, London.

Works

Books

*
River Reeds
' (volume of verse), 1866.
''Rosamunda the princess, and other tales''
James Parker & Co., 1875. *Kingsford, A. & Maitland, E.
The Key of the Creeds
'. Trubner, 1875. *

', 1886. *
Health, Beauty and the Toilet: Letters to Ladies from a Lady Doctor
'. F. Warne, 1886. *
Dreams and Dream Stories
'. 1888. *
Clothed with the Sun
'. J. M. Watkins, 1912. *

'. 1916. *'' ttps://archive.org/details/perfectwayorfind00king The Perfect Way, or the Finding of Christ'. Watkins, 1909. *
The Perfect Way in Diet
'. Kegan Paul, Trench & Co., 1881. *Kingsford, A. & Maitland, E.

'. John M Watkins, 1912.

Chapters

in Colville, W. J. ''Spiritual Therapeutics Or Divine Science''. 1890, pp. 292–308.

" 1882, in Hamilton, Susan. (ed.) ''Animal Welfare & Anti-vivisection 1870–1910: Nineteenth Century Woman's Mission''. Taylor & Francis, 2004.
"The City of Blood"
in Forward, Stephanie. (ed.) ''Dreams, Visions and Realities''. Continuum International, 2003.

References

Bibliography

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kingsford, Anna 1846 births 1888 deaths 19th-century deaths from tuberculosis 19th-century English medical doctors 19th-century English novelists 19th-century English poets 19th-century English women writers 19th-century mystics 19th-century women physicians Animal testing in the United Kingdom Anti-vivisectionists British vegetarianism activists Converts to Roman Catholicism Ecofeminists English animal rights activists English feminists English Freemasons English mountain climbers English occult writers English occultists English spiritual writers English Theosophists English women medical doctors English women novelists English women poets Founders of new religious movements People associated with the Vegetarian Society People from Kensington People from Stratford, London Tuberculosis deaths in England