Theodora Wilson Wilson
British writer and pacifist (1865–1941)
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Theodora Wilson Wilson (13 January 1865 – 8 November 1941) was a British writer and pacifist. She was a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom. Her "quaint" reputation as a writer changed when she published her 1916 science fiction novel The Last Weapon, A Vision, whose anti-war message led to its being banned.
Theodora Wilson Wilson | |
|---|---|
| |
| Born | 13 January 1865 |
| Died | 8 November 1941 (aged 76) St. Albans, UK |
| Occupations | Writer, pacifist |
| Relatives | Samuel Bagster the Elder (great-grandfather) |
Early life and education
Theodora Wilson Wilson was born in Kendal, Westmorland, the daughter of Isaac Whitwell Wilson and Anne Bagster Wilson.[1] Her family were former Quakers; her grandfather Jonathan Bagster and great-grandfather Samuel Bagster were Bible publishers.[2] Her older brother Horace Bagster Wilson was a noted physician.[3] She attended Stramongate School and Croydon High School and studied music in Germany.[4]
Career
Wilson ran a Sunday school as a young woman, and founded an evening school program for working girls.[4] Her first book was a 1900 guide to poultry keeping for women.[5] She moved to London in 1909, and became a Quaker before World War I. Her career as a fiction writer began with her first novel, T'bacca Queen (1901).[6] She also wrote children's books,[7][8] Bible study guides, and plays, including Champion North (1931),[9] Across Yonder (1936)[10] and Marya.[11]
A 1905 review of Wilson's novel Langbarrow Hall declared that she was "striving neither to be clever or unusual, but merely to write out at length a story both quaint and natural".[12] This "quaint" reputation soon changed, as her 1916 pacifist allegorical novel[13] The Last Weapon, A Vision has science fiction and fantasy themes, as it imagines "Hellite", an ultimate doomsday device comparable to the nuclear bomb and ICBM, and a messenger from Paradise called "the Child".[2][14] The pacifist book was briefly banned as anti-war propaganda,[15] and thousands of copies were seized by authorities.[16] An American reviewer believed that "When the war is over it may be pointed out as one of the great books resulting from this crisis".[17] According to an item in the Quaker weekly The Friend 22.3.1918 page 192 the police pulped 18,000 cheap copies of her book.
Wilson was a founding member of the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and served on the general committee of the Fellowship of Reconciliation from 1915 to 1922.[2] She was editor of The New Crusader, a pacifist periodical, from 1917.[2][18][19] She spoke at meetings in Trecynon and Merthyr in 1917,[16][20] and at a peace rally in Bishopsgate in 1918;[21] she also spoke at Society of Friends meetings in Manchester in 1914,[22] 1933[23] and 1934,[24] and in London in 1936.[25]
Legacy
In 2019, the Greater Manchester & District Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament crowdfunded a new edition of The Last Weapon, a Vision.[15][26] The launch of the new book was supported by a talk in Manchester and a video that featured Maxine Peake.[15]
Selected books
- Poultry Keeping for Women, for Pleasure and Profit (1900)[5]
- T'bacca Queen (1901)[27]
- Ursula Raven (1905)[28]
- Langbarrow Hall (1905)[29]
- Our Joshua (1905)[30]
- The Magic Jujubes (1906)[31]
- Sarah the Valiant (1907)[32]
- The Factory Queen (1908)[33]
- The Islanders (1910)[34]
- The Search of the Child (1910)[35]
- A Modern Affair (1912)[36]
- Jim's Children (1912)[37]
- Five of Them (1912)[38]
- A Modern Ahab (1912)[39]
- The Dauntless Three (1914)[40]
- What Happened to Kitty (1916)[41]
- Stories from the Bible (1916)[42]
- The Last Weapon, A Vision (1916)[43]
- The Weapon Unsheathed (1916)[44]
- Netherdale For Ever![45]
- The Story of Odysseus (1921)[46]
- The Last Dividend (1922)[47]
- The Undaunted Trio (1923)[48]
- Father M. P. (1923)[49]
- Cousins in Camp (1925)[50]
- Jerry Makes Good (1926)[51]
- The Cousins of Faulkland (1927)[52]
- The Strange Adventures of Billy (1927)[53]
- The Explorer's Son (1928)[54]
- The Laughing Band (1929)[55]
- Pat Joins the Laughing Band (1929)[56]
- The Parables of Our Lord (1929)[57]
- Founders of Wat End School (1932)[58]
- Once-upon-a-time Land (1932)[59]
- The Lost Cup of Walla (1933)[60]
- The Sole Survivor (1935)[61]
- A Tale of Two Secrets (1936)[62]
- Margot Fights Through (1936)[63]
- Those Strange Years (1937)[64]
- The St Berga Swimming Pool (1939)[65]
- The Grants and Jane (1940)[66]
- Into the Arena (1944)[67]
Personal life
Wilson died in St. Albans in 1941, aged 76 years.[4]
