Clare Paterson
The Nine Lives of Annie Besant

Thursday 11 June 2026, 7.00pm
WI Centre, Whitelands, Terling Road, Hatfield Peverel, Essex, CM3 2AG

Award-winning British TV producer and author Clare Paterson joins us for a fascinating conversation about her latest book.

The Nine Lives of Annie Besant charts the extraordinary – and largely untold – story of a pioneering Victorian feminist – a rebel with a thousand causes, and a thorn in the side of power across two continents.

In partnership with Federation of Essex Women’s Institutes.

Tickets: £10 / £8 concessions (students, under 27s and unwaged)
Box Office: essexbookfestival.org.uk or Mercury Theatre 1206 573948

Event Information

💬 The event will include an audience Q&A session.
📚 Copies of the book will be available to purchase on the night.
🖊️ After the event there will be an opportunity to get the book signed by the author.
🪑 Seats are unallocated.
☕ Refreshments will be available.
🚗 The venue has ample free parking on site.
♿ The venue is wheelchair accessible. There are disabled facilities on site.

Clare Paterson

Clare Paterson has extensive experience of commissioning and producing television programmes from The Great British Bake-Off to the multi-award winning Exodus- Our Journey to Europe. Her first book, Mr Horniman’s Walrus, was published in September 2022.

The Nine Lives of Annie Besant: The Astonishing Story of a Victorian Rebel

A rebel with a thousand causes, and a thorn in the side of power across two continents.

On Thursday, 5 April 1877 police charged 30-year-old Annie Besant and her colleague Charles Bradlaugh with breaching the Obscene Publications Act 1857.

The reason was the scandalous sale of a slim book called The Fruits of Philosophy. If the fictional Lady Chatterley’s Lover was the subject of the case in 1960 which horrified and delighted in equal measure, this was the non-fiction equivalent nearly a century earlier. The publication of this birth control guide, which the prosecutor in the trial referred to as a ‘filthy, dirty book’, caused a sensation and made Annie famous.

A heroine of Indian nationalism, Annie Besant was a pioneering feminist – a woman who refused to be defined.

But Annie’s extraordinary influence stretched from the Western to the Eastern hemisphere and from the secular to the occult. She became a committed Theosophist and moved to India where she was a celebrated campaigner for Indian Home-Rule.

In a police report commissioned by the government on the dangers posed by Annie towards the end of her life, the investigator commented that ‘the perpetual struggle of the violent reformer against constitutional authority continued.’ She was recognised then, and should be now, as a formidable and fearless fighter.

Annie’s life has been cherry picked by historians, partly because the stories are rich and engaging but also to avoid the awkwardness of her theosophical incarnation.

In The Nine Lives of Annie Besant, Clare Paterson charts the extraordinary – and largely untold – story of this pioneering Victorian feminist.

Order a copy of the book from bookshop.org.