Mabel Besant-Scott

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Mabel Emily Besant-Scott ("Mabs") (1870-08-28 Leckhampton, Gloucestershire – 1952-05-22) was a Theosophist, Co-Freemason and Rosicrucian.

She was the daughter of the famous Theosophist, Liberal Catholic and Co-Freemason Annie Besant and her husband Rev. Frank Besant. She also had an older brother named Arthur Besant.

Mabel Besant married in 1892 at Marylebone, London, a journalist named Ernest Scott, and they emigrated to Australia where he became a Roman Catholic. However, he was soon arrested for soliciting sex from a ten-year old boy and was sentenced to jail for several years, causing Besant-Scott to divorce him.^{[citation needed]}

After her divorce Mabel Besant-Scott returned to England. For some time she assisted her mother in both British Co-Masonry and the Theosophical Society Adyar. After her mother’s death Mabel Besant-Scott briefly became the head of the British Federation of Co-Freemasonry.

She abruptly resigned from Co-Freemasonry only a year later, and shortly afterwards joined the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, taking with her some of her followers from Co-Masonry. She was one of the most active members of this Rosicrucian theatre near Christchurch, which was led by George Alexander Sullivan.^[1]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Heselton, Philip (2000). Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival. Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann Publishing. ISBN 186163-110-3.