ABSTRACT
In the autumn of 1867, before her marriage, Annie Wood and her mother were staying with some friends near Manchester. A Special Commission was issued, with the “hanging judge,” Mr Justice Blackburn, at its head, and the proceedings were so hurried on that in little more than a month the trial opened. At the magistrates’ hearing the prisoners were brought up in irons and, all protests being in vain, their counsel, Ernest Jones, threw down his brief and left the court. As a result Mrs Besant was led to study various social problems, the nature of which can be judged from a series of printed lectures which she brought out. In 1880 a very popular pamphlet appeared entitled Landlords, Tenant Farmers, and Laborers.
