Anna Kingsford
| Anna Kingsford | |
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| Born |
Anna Bonus 16 September 1846 Stratford, Essex (now London), England |
| Died | 22 February 1888 (aged 41) London |
| Cause of death | Complications of pneumonia |
| Resting place | Saint Eata's churchyard, Atcham |
| Education | Medical degree |
| Alma mater | University of Paris |
| Occupation | Editor, The Lady's Own Paper |
| Known for | Anti-vivisectionist, vegetarian campaigner |
| Notable work | The Perfect Way in Diet |
| Spouse(s) | Algernon Godfrey Kingsford |
| Children | 1 daughter, Eadith |
| Parent(s) | John Bonus and Elizabeth Ann Schröder |
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Anna Kingsford, née Bonus (16 September 1846 – 22 February 1888), was an English anti-vivisection, vegetarian and women's rights 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 and Gnosticism, and became active in the theosophical movement in England, becoming president of the London Lodge of the Theosophical Society in 1883. 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.
Kingsford was born in Maryland Point, Stratford, now part of east London but then in Essex, to John Bonus, a wealthy merchant, and his wife, Elizabeth Ann Schröder.
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. 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.
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