Abstract
Theosophist Frances Swiney (1847–1922) was an outspoken women’s rights activist and supporter of women’s choice in selecting a partner for marriage and reproduction. In 1907, she became a member of the Eugenics Education Society. In 1910, she founded the League of Isis, which regularly published pamphlets designed to educate young people about sex and racial regeneration. Swiney highlights the importance of esotericism to eugenic Theosophical feminism situating the discourse of reproduction and eugenics within an evolutionary and racial framework. This chapter examines the entanglement of colonialism and imperial feminism which defined “race” and “sisterhood” within theosophical feminism. Discourses of reproduction—as a combination of “science” and “religion”—enabled Swiney and other imperial feminists to reinforce an imperial racial identity while othering their Indian “Sisters,” legitimized by esotericism.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Frances Swiney, The Esoteric Teaching of the Gnostics (London: Yellon, William & Co, 1908), 12 and 21.
- 2.
A. J. R, ed., Suffrage Annual and Women’s Who’s Who (London: Stanley Paul, 1913), 372; The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney: Famous Champion of Her Sex,” May 4, 1922, 3.
- 3.
Frances Swiney, The League of Isis: Rules (Cheltenham: League of Isis, 1910).
- 4.
Even though Swiney is concerned with the degeneration of the “British race” in particular, as I will show in the part concerning eugenics, Swiney never engages with the question of “racial purity” in the sense of interracial mixing, as other eugenicists then did.
- 5.
William Garrett, ed., Marie Stopes: Feminist Eroticist, Eugenicist (San Francisco: Kenon Books, 2007), xxxvii.
- 6.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3.
- 7.
The Cheltenham Looker-On, “A Cheltenham Leader of the Women’s Movement,” February 7, 1920, 18.
- 8.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3.
- 9.
Siv-Ellen Kraft, “The Sex Problem: Political Aspects of Gender Discourse in the Theosophical Society 1875–1930” (PhD diss., University of Bergen, 1999), 40; Joy Dixon, Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), 168.
- 10.
Dixon, Divine Feminine, 168.
- 11.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3.
- 12.
Ibid.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3; Cheltenham Looker-On, “News from the Newspapers,” June 17, 1871, 380.
- 15.
Cheltenham Looker-On, “News from the Newspapers,” 380.
- 16.
The Worcester Herald, “Local Intelligence,” June 24, 1871, 3.
- 17.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3.
- 18.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Cheltenham and County,” May 18, 1918, 4; Canterbury Journal, Kentish Times and Farmers’ Gazette, “Births,” January 1873; Cheltenham Chronicle, “Births,” February 1874, 2. Their first son, Gilbert M. Swiney was born in Madras, in January 1873, as well as the second son, Hesketh Swiney, in February 1874. Sydney Swiney, their third son was probably also born in India.
- 19.
Cheltenham Chronicle, “Arrivals, Departures, and Removals,” January 16, 1877, 2.
- 20.
Elisabeth Buettner, Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 2–3.
- 21.
Buettner, Empire Families, 9.
- 22.
Ibid., 9.
- 23.
Ibid., 6.
- 24.
Ibid., 16 and 18.
- 25.
Edward Scot, ed., Cheltenham College Register 1841–1927 (Cheltenham: Cheltenham College, 1928); The Gloucestershire Echo, “Cheltenham and County,” 4. Col. Swiney himself was born in Cheltenham and went to the College as a day boy from 1841 to 1848. His father and his uncle, John Swiney, were two of the first directors of the college. As Buettner examines in Empire Families, Cheltenham College and similar schools ‘not only attracted a substantial imperial clientele but also played central roles in perpetuating this identity into the next generation by training their pupils for imperial careers’ (18).
- 26.
He had visited the family in 1879, when he was granted furlough for 14 months on medical certificate. Their fourth son, Arundel Swiney, was born in 1881, followed by their surviving daughter, Gladys Swiney, in 1887.
- 27.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Cheltenham and County,” 4; Cheltenham College Register 1841–1927; Edward Scot, ed., Cheltenham College Register 1841–1927 (Cheltenham: Cheltenham College, 1928); The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3. His sons followed in his footsteps; all of them went to Cheltenham College as Day Boys. Afterwards, the first two served in India, the third in Australia, and the last one became a Reverend, like his great-uncle, and then Naval Chaplain.
- 28.
Swiney became a prominent local feminist and leader of various suffrage movements. She also participated in national and international meetings and established a network of feminist contacts. For a detailed account on Swiney’s local participation, see: Sue Jones, Votes for Women: Cheltenham and the Cotswolds (Stroud: The History Press, 2018).
- 29.
Frances Swiney, The Esoteric Teachings of the Gnostics, 21.
- 30.
For the interrelation of feminism and religion, see: Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beas: Feminism, Sex and Morality (London: Tauris, 2001); Ann Taylor Allen, Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe 1890–1970: The Maternal Dilemma (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005); Diana Basham, The Trial of Woman: Feminism and the Occult Sciences in Victorian Literature and Society (New York: New York University Press, 1992); Sheila Jeffreys, The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930 (London: Pandora Press, 1985); Laura Schwartz, Infidel Feminism: Secularism, Religion and Women’s Emancipation, England 1830–1914 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). For the important role theosophy played as an alternative for women, see: Diana Burfield, “Theosophy and Feminism: Some Exploration in Nineteenth Century Biography,” in Women’s Religious Experience, edited by Pat Holden (Kent: Croom Helm, 1983), 27–56; Dixon, Divine Feminine; Kraft, “The Sex Problem”; Robert Ellwood and Catherine Wessinger, “The Feminism of ‘Universal Brotherhood’: Women in the Theosophical Movement,” in Women’s Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream, edited by Catherine Wessinger (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993), 68–87.
- 31.
For the reception of the goddess Isis in nineteenth century occultism, see: Alex Owen, The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2004).
- 32.
Frances Swiney, The Awakening of Women Or Woman’s Part in Evolution (London: George Redway, 1899), 18.
- 33.
H. P. Blavatsky, Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology (New York: J. W. Bouton, 1877), xxx.
- 34.
Frances Swiney, The Mystery of the Circle and the Cross (London: Open Road Publishing, 1908), 12.
- 35.
Swiney, 43–45.
- 36.
Swiney, 45.
- 37.
Swiney, 50.
- 38.
Swiney, 63.
- 39.
Frances Swiney, The Cosmic Procession, Or the Feminine Principle in Evolution (London: Ernest Bell, 1906), vii and 230.
- 40.
For more on Swiney’s remarks on the femaleness of the Christian God and her interpretation of Gnosticism, see: Jessica Albrecht, “The Divine Feminine and Pistis Sophia. Motherhood, Sexuality, and Theosophical Gnosticism in Frances Swiney’s Feminism,” La Rosa Di Paracelso, no. 1–2 (2018): 123–138.
- 41.
Swiney, “The Maternity of God,” Westminster Review 165, no. 5 (1906): 560–561.
- 42.
Swiney, 588.
- 43.
J. Jeffrey Franklin, Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018), 1.
- 44.
Michael Bergunder, “‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ Within a Global Religious History,” Aries 16, no. 1 (2016): 118.
- 45.
Bergunder, “‘Religion’ and ‘Science,’” 117; Franklin, Spirit Matters, ix. See also: Michael Bergunder, “What Is Esotericism? Cultural Studies Approaches and the Problems of Definition in Religious Studies,” Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22, no. 1 (2010): 9–36; Egil Asprem, The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900–1939 (Boston: Brill Academic Publishers, 2014).
- 46.
Frances Swiney, Sublime Feminism (Cheltenham: League of Isis, n.d.).
- 47.
The Woman’s Tribune, quoted in Frances Swiney, The Cosmic Procession Or the Feminine Principle in Evolution (London: Ernest Bell, 1906).
- 48.
Fia Dieteren, “Kuisheid Omwille van de Vooruitgang. De Alternatieve Evolutieleer van Frances Swiney,” Strijd Om Seksualiteit, 20 (2000):134, 143, and 147.
- 49.
Dixon, Divine Feminine, 168.
- 50.
B. K., Review of The Awakening of Women by Frances Swiney, Theosophical Review (June 1899): 381.
- 51.
Arthur Edward Waite, Review of The Mystery of the Circle and the Cross by Frances Swiney, Occult Review 25 (February 1917): 60; A. R. O., “Woman Leading On,” The Theosophical Review 39, no. 233 (January 1907): 476.
- 52.
Swiney, The Mystery of the Circle and the Cross, 13.
- 53.
O., “Woman Leading on,” 476.
- 54.
H. P. Blavatsky, The Secret Doctrine (London: Theosophical Publishing House, 1888), 4.
- 55.
Swiney also influenced other feminist esoteric groups, such as the Panacea Society, founded by Mabel Barltrop, Octavia. After the Leadbeater crisis, many women left the Theosophical Society and joined the Panacea Society in the 1920s. When Ellen Oliver, a friend of Octavia searched for evidence for the belief in a female savior, Octavia sent her Swiney’s The Awakening of Women. Since reading this she believed in women’s evolutionary superiority which is portrayed in a female Messiah, herself. See letter from Oliver to Barltrop, 4 November 1918, The Panacea Charitable Trust.
- 56.
Swiney, The Awakening of Women, 85.
- 57.
Swiney, The League of Isis: Rules.
- 58.
Swiney.
- 59.
The Gloucestershire Echo, “Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney,” 3.
- 60.
Frances Swiney, The Plea of Disenfranchised Women (Cheltenham: Shenton, 1896), 1 and 4.
- 61.
Swiney, 4.
- 62.
Susan Kingsley Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860–1914 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987).
- 63.
Swiney, The Awakening of Women, 56–57 and 118.
- 64.
Lesley A. Hall, “Suffrage, Sex and Science,” in The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives, edited by Maroula Joannou and June Purvis (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 189.
- 65.
George Robb, “Race Motherhood: Moral Eugenics vs Progressive Eugenics, 1880–1920,” in Maternal Instinct: Visions of Motherhood and Sexuality in Britain, 1875–1925, edited by Claudia Nelson and Ann Sumner Holmes (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1997), 58.
- 66.
Frances Swiney, Responsibilities of Fatherhood (Cheltenham: League of Isis, 1912), 23.
- 67.
H. G. Cocks, “Religion and Spirituality,” in Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality, edited by H. G. Cocks and Matt Houlbrook (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 158.
- 68.
Swiney, The League of Isis: Rules.
- 69.
Ibid.
- 70.
Swiney.
- 71.
Frances Swiney, The Bar of Isis, or the Law of the Mother (London: The Open Road Publishing, 1907), 43.
- 72.
Swiney, 18.
- 73.
Swiney, 35–36.
- 74.
Frances Swiney, The Instruction of the Young in the Law of Sex (Cheltenham: League of Isis, n.d.), 12.
- 75.
Swiney, 13.
- 76.
Donald J. Childs, Modernism and Eugenics. Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, and the Culture of Degeneration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
- 77.
Christine Ferguson, Determined Spirits. Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritual Writing, 1848–1930 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012).
- 78.
Angelique Richardson, Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century: Rational Reproduction and the New Woman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 36.
- 79.
Robb, “Race Motherhood,” 59.
- 80.
Eugenics Education Society Minutes, February 12, 1908.
- 81.
Swiney, Frances, Racial Problems (Cheltenham: League of Isis, n.d.).
- 82.
Frances Swiney, “Press Opinions.”
- 83.
Votes for Women, “Race Improvement,” September 20, 1912, 814.
- 84.
For more on Swiney and eugenics see: George Robb, “Between Science and Spiritualism. Frances Swiney’s Vision of a Sexless Future,” Diogenes 52, no. 4 (2005): 163–168; George Robb, “The Way of All Flesh: Degeneration, Eugenics, and the Gospel of Free Love,” Journal of the History of Sexuality 6, no. 4 (1996): 589–603; George Robb, “Marriage and Reproduction,” in Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality, edited by Matt Houlbrook and H. G. Cocks (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), 87–108; Richardson, Love and Eugenics, 33–58; Lucy Delap, “The Superwoman: Theories of Gender and Genius in Edwardian Britain,” The Historical Journal 47, no. 1 (2004): 101–126; Lucy Delap, The Feminist Avant-Garde: Transatlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).
- 85.
Jones, Votes for Women, 38.
- 86.
Lucy Bland, Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 199.
- 87.
Kent, Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 24.
- 88.
Valerie Amos and Pratibha Parmar, “Challenging Imperial Feminism,” Feminist Review, no. 17 (1984): 3–19; Antoinette Burton, Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994); Barbara N. Ramusack and Antoinette Burton, “Feminism, Imperialism and Race: A Dialogue Between India and Britain,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 4 (1994): 469–481; Antoinette Burton, “Race, Empire, and the Making of Western Feminism,” Routledge Historical Resources, August 2, 2016, https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com/feminism/essays/race-empire-and-the-making-of-western-feminism. Routledge; Catherine Candy, “Relating Feminisms, Nationalisms and Imperialisms. Ireland, India and Margaret Cousin’s Sexual Politics,” Women’s History Review 3, no. 4 (1994): 581–594; Maina Chawla Singh, Gender, Religion, and ‘Heathen Lands’: American Missionary Women in South Asia (1860s–1940s) (New York: Garland Publishing, 2000).
- 89.
Burton, Burdens of History, 17–40.
- 90.
Burton, 35.
- 91.
Dixon, Divine Feminine, 155.
- 92.
Burton, Burdens of History, 85.
- 93.
Anna Deborah Logan, The Indian Ladies’ Magazine 1901–1938: From Raj to Swaraj (Lanhan: Lehigh University Press, 2017).
- 94.
Frances Swiney, “Woman’s Redemption,” Indian Ladies’ Magazine (1903); Frances Swiney, “Women Among the Nations,” Westminster Review 164, no. 5 (1905), 538.
- 95.
Swiney, The Awakening of Women, 53.
- 96.
Frances Swiney, Our Indian Sisters (Cheltenham: League of Isis, 1914), 3.
- 97.
Swiney, 9–10.
- 98.
Swiney, 33.
- 99.
Richard King, Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’ (London: Routledge, 1999). This can be seen as an othering process related to orientalist debates on Indian religions, as described by Richard King with reference to Edward Said.
- 100.
Frances Swiney, The Ancient Road Or the Development of the Soul (London: Bell Sons, 1918), 485–486.
Bibliography
Albrecht, Jessica. 2018. The Divine Feminine and Pistis Sophia. Motherhood, Sexuality, and Theosophical Gnosticism in Frances Swiney’s Feminism. La Rosa Di Paracelso (1–2): 123–138.
Allen, Ann Taylor. 2005. Feminism and Motherhood in Western Europe 1890–1970: The Maternal Dilemma. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Amos, Valerie, and Pratibha Parmar. 1984. Challenging Imperial Feminism. Feminist Review0(17): 3–19.
Asprem, Egil. 2014. The Problem of Disenchantment: Scientific Naturalism and Esoteric Discourse, 1900–1939, Numen Book Series. Vol. 147. Boston: Brill Academic Publishers.
Basham, Diana. 1992. The Trial of Woman: Feminism and the Occult Sciences in Victorian Literature and Society. New York: New York University Press.
Bergunder, Michael. 2010. What Is Esotericism? Cultural Studies Approaches and the Problems of Definition in Religious Studies. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion 22 (1): 9–36.
———. 2016. ‘Religion’ and ‘Science’ Within a Global Religious History. Aries 16 (1): 86–141.
Bland, Lucy. 2001. Banishing the Beast: Feminism, Sex and Morality. London: I. B. Tauris.
Blavatsky, H.P. 1877. Isis Unveiled: A Master Key to the Mysteries of Ancient and Modern Science and Theology. New York: J. W. Bouton.
———. 1888. The Secret Doctrine. Vol. 1. London: Theosophical Publishing House.
Buettner, Elisabeth. 2004. Empire Families: Britons and Late Imperial India. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Burfield, Diana. 1983. Theosophy and Feminism: Some Explorations in Nineteenth Century Biography. In Women’s Religious Experience, ed. Pat Holden, 27–56. London: Croom Helm.
Burton, Antoinette. 1994. Burdens of History: British Feminists, Indian Women, and Imperial Culture, 1865–1915. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.
———. 2016. Race, Empire, and the Making of Western Feminism. Routledge Historical Resources, August 3. https://www.routledgehistoricalresources.com/feminism/essays/race-empire-and-the-making-of-western-feminism.
Candy, Catherine. 1994. Relating Feminisms, Nationalisms and Imperialisms. Ireland, India and Margaret Cousin’s Sexual Politics. Women’s History Review 3 (4): 581–594.
Canterbury Journal, Kentish Times and Farmers’ Gazette. 1873. Births. February 1. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001404/18730201/053/0004.
Cheltenham Chronicle. 1874. Births. March 24, 2. https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000312/18740324/034/0002.
———. 1877. Arrivals, Departures, and Removals. January 16, 2.
Cheltenham Looker-On. 1871. News from the Newspapers. June 17, 380.
Childs, Donald J. 2001. Modernism and Eugenics. Woolf, Eliot, Yeats, and the Culture of Degeneration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cocks, H.G. 2006. Religion and Spirituality. In Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality, ed. H.G. Cocks and Matt Houlbrook, 157–179. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Delap, Lucy. 2004. The Superwoman: Theories of Gender and Genius in Edwardian Britain. The Historical Journal 47 (1): 101–126.
———. 2007. The Feminist Avant-Garde: Transatlantic Encounters of the Early Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Dieteren, Fia. 2000. Kuisheid Omwille van de Vooruitgang: De Alternatieve Evolutieleer van Frances Swiney. Strijd Om Seksualiteit 20: 134–152.
Dixon, Joy. 2001. Divine Feminine: Theosophy and Feminism in England. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Ellwood, Robert, and Catherine Wessinger. 1993. The Feminism of ‘Universal Brotherhood’: Women in the Theosophical Movement. In Women’s Leadership in Marginal Religions: Explorations Outside the Mainstream, ed. Catherine Wessinger, 68–87. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Eugenics Education Society Minutes. 1908. February 12. Wellcome Library, SAEUG/L.
Ferguson, Christine. 2012. Determined Spirits: Eugenics, Heredity and Racial Regeneration in Anglo-American Spiritual Writing, 1848–1930. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Franklin, J. 2018. Jeffrey. Spirit Matters: Occult Beliefs, Alternative Religions, and the Crisis of Faith in Victorian Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Garrett, William, ed. 2007. Marie Stopes: Feminist, Eroticist, Eugenicist. San Francisco: Kenon Books.
Hall, Lesley A. 1998. Suffrage, Sex and Science. In The Women’s Suffrage Movement: New Feminist Perspectives, ed. Maroula Joannou and June Purvis, 188–200. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Jeffreys, Sheila. 1985. The Spinster and Her Enemies: Feminism and Sexuality 1880–1930. London: Pandora Press.
Jones, Sue. 2018. Votes for Women: Cheltenham and the Cotswolds. Stroud: The History Press.
K., B. 1899, June. Review of The Awakening of Women by Frances Swiney. Theosophical Review 24: 381.
Kent, Susan Kingsley. 1987. Sex and Suffrage in Britain, 1860–1914. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
King, Richard. 1999. Orientalism and Religion: Postcolonial Theory, India and ‘the Mystic East’. London: Routledge.
Kraft, Siv-Ellen. 1999. The Sex Problem: Political Aspects of Gender Discourse in the Theosophical Society 1875–1930. PhD diss., University of Bergen.
Logan, Deborah Anna. 2017. The Indian Ladies’ Magazine 1901–1938: From Raj to Swaraj. Lanhan: Lehigh University Press.
O., A. R. 1907, January. Woman Leading On. The Theosophical Review 39 (233): 476.
Owen, Alex. 2004. The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
R, A. J. ed. 1913. The Suffrage Annual and Women’s Who’s Who. London: Stanley Paul.
Ramusack, Barbara N., and Antoinette Burton. 1994. Feminism, Imperialism and Race: A Dialogue Between India and Britain. Women’s History Review 3 (4): 469–481.
Richardson, Angelique. 2003. Love and Eugenics in the Late Nineteenth Century: Rational Reproduction and the New Woman. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Robb, George. 1996. The Way of All Flesh: Degeneration, Eugenics, and the Gospel of Free Love. Journal of the History of Sexuality 6 (4): 589–603.
———. 1997. Race Motherhood: Moral Eugenics vs Progressive Eugenics, 1880–1920. In Maternal Instinct: Visions of Motherhood and Sexuality in Britain, 1875–1925, ed. Claudia Nelson and Ann Sumner Holmes, 58–74. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
———. 2005. \Between Science and Spiritualism. Frances Swiney’s Vision of a Sexless Future. Diogenes 52 (4): 163–168.
———. 2006. Marriage and Reproduction. In Palgrave Advances in the Modern History of Sexuality, ed. Matt Houlbrook and H.G. Cocks, 87–108. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Schwartz, Laura. 2013. Infidel Feminism: Secularism, Religion and Women’s Emancipation, England 1830–1914. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Singh, Maina Chawla. 2000. Gender, Religion, and ‘Heathen Lands’: American Missionary Women in South Asia (1860s–1940s). New York: Garland Publishing.
Skirving, Edward Scot, ed. 1928. Cheltenham College Register 1841–1927. Cheltenham: Cheltenham College.
Swiney, Frances. 1896. The Plea of Disenfranchised Women. Cheltenham: Shenton.
———. 1899. The Awakening of Women, Or Woman’s Part in Evolution. London: George Redway.
———. 1905. Women Among the Nations. Westminster Review 164 (5): 538–551.
———. 1906a. The Cosmic Procession, Or the Feminine Principle in Evolution. London: Ernest Bell.
———. 1906b. The Maternity of God. Westminster Review 165 (5): 556–567.
———. 1907. The Bar of Isis, Or the Law of the Mother. London: The Open Road Publishing.
———. 1908. The Mystery of the Circle and the Cross. London: Open Road Publishing.
———. 1909. The Esoteric Teaching of the Gnostics. London: Yellon, Williams & Co.
———. 1910. The League of Isis: Rules. No. 14 of Racial Problems. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
———. 1912. Responsibilities of Fatherhood. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
———. 1914. Our Indian Sisters. No. 12 of Racial Problems. Cheltenham: The League of Isis.
———. 1918. The Ancient Road, Or the Development of the Soul. London: Bell Sons.
———. Press Opinions. Racial Problems.
———. n.d.-a. Racial Problems. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
———. n.d.-b. Rules of Admission and Procedure. No. 4 of Racial Problems. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
———. n.d.-c. Sublime Feminism. No. 3 of Racial Problems 3. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
———. n.d.-d. The Instruction of the Young in the Law of Sex. No. 8 of Racial Problems. Cheltenham: League of Isis.
The Cheltenham Looker-On. 1920. A Cheltenham Leader of the Women’s Movement. February 7, 18.
The Gloucestershire Echo. 1918. Cheltenham and County. May 18, 4.
———. 1922. Death of Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney: Famous Champion of Her Sex. May 4, 3.
The Worcester Herald. 1871. Local Intelligence. June 24, 3.
Votes for Women. 1912. Race Improvement. September 20, 814.
Waite, Arthur Edward. 1917, February. Review of The Mysteries of the Circle and the Cross by Frances Swiney. Occult Review 25: 125–130.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Albrecht, J.A. (2021). Mrs. Rosa Frances Swiney: Imperial Feminism and Eugenics in Theosophical Evolutionist Thought. In: Hale, A. (eds) Essays on Women in Western Esotericism. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76889-8_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76889-8_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-76888-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-76889-8
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)