I think most of us are aware April 2012 marked the centenary of the fateful night when the RMS Titanic sank. We know the story – this was a huge cruise ship which was professed to be unsinkable. It was, at the time, an extraordinary achievement – a modern, well fitted out ship which was designed to provided accommodation for a diverse range of passengers from the rich and famous, through the middle classes, to the lowly workers and their families who had saved avidly for months from their meagre income in order to travel to pastures new lookng for a better quality of life.

Annie Besant was considered more than a little eccentric in her day but much of what she achieved in her lifetime, we now take for granted today.
Annie Woods was born in London in October 1847. She wasn’t what one would call a happy child. Her father died when she was just five and Annie’s mother in effect abandoned her and persuaded a friend (Ellen Marryat), the sister of British Naval Officer and relatively prolific writer Frederick Marryat, to take charge of the young child.