Anna Kingsford

Content sourced from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.

Anna Kingsford

Anna Kingsford (born Annie Bonus; 16 September 1846 – 22 February 1888) was an English writer, anti-vivisectionist, vegetarian and campaigner for women’s rights. She was one of the first English women to earn a medical degree and the only student of her time to graduate without harming animals.

Early life and education
She was born in Stratford, Essex (now part of London). From a young age she showed talent for writing and ideas about equality. In 1867 she married Algernon Godfrey Kingsford, and they had a daughter named Eadith. She converted to Roman Catholicism in 1872.

Medical training and vegetarian work
To become a doctor, she studied in Paris, where women could train but faced hostility in the male world of medicine. She graduated in 1880 after six years of study, and her final thesis on vegetarianism was published in English as The Perfect Way in Diet (1881). That same year she helped start the Food Reform Society and spoke out against animal experimentation in the UK, in Paris, Geneva and Lausanne. She became a lifelong vegetarian and was a vice-president of the Vegetarian Society.

Theosophy, writing and other work
Kingsford enjoyed Buddhist and Gnostic ideas and joined the Theosophical movement in England, eventually becoming president of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society in 1883. In 1884 she founded the Hermetic Society, which lasted until 1887. She wrote about spiritual insights she said came to her in trance and sleep; these ideas were later collected and published as Clothed with the Sun (1889) by her collaborator Edward Maitland.

Later life and death
Kingfords health was fragile for much of her life. A bad bout of pneumonia worsened an existing lung illness, and she spent her last years between London and warmer climates in hope of recovery. She died in London on 22 February 1888 at age 41 and was buried at Saint Eata’s churchyard in Atcham.

Legacy
For many years her writings were little known, but researchers revisited her life in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, recognizing her as a pioneer in women’s rights, medical history and vegetarian advocacy.

Personal notes
She used the pen name Ninon in early writing about female equality. At marriage her name appeared as Annie Bonus, and at death it was recorded as Annie Kingsford. She was connected with notable contemporaries such as Frances Power Cobbe, a fellow anti-vivisectionist and writer.