An early member of the Theosophical Society, having joined in 1881. She was aunt and mother by adoption of the Society’s third international president, George Arundale. Her house at 77 Elgin Crescent, London, became the nucleus of the London Lodge of the English Section. She was a pioneer Co-Mason in Britain and in 1902 introduced Annie Besant to Freemasonry for men and women. Arundale followed her Co-Masonic work in Britain by further work in India; she was principal of the Central Hindu College Girls' School and also of the National Girls' School at Mylapore, near Adyar.  In 1922 she was appointed honorary head of the Women’s Branch of the Education Department of the Holkar State in India. Arundale was one of the few persons to receive letters from the Masters of the Wisdom. She died on March 23, 1924.

 

Francesca E. Arundale

Publications include The Idea of Rebirth (1890), Intuitional Consciousness (1916), and My Guest: H. P. Blavatsky (1932).