This gathering, held in Gower Street, was memorable because it
was attended by Mrs. Annie Besant, then notorious as an advocate of
Atheism and Malthusianism, the heroine of several famous law cases, and
a friend and colleague of Charles Bradlaugh. Mrs. Besant was elected a
member a few weeks later, and she completed the list of the seven who
subsequently wrote "Fabian Essays," with the exception of Graham Wallas,
who did not join the Society until April, 1886.[12]
But although Sidney Webb had become a Fabian the scientific spirit was
not yet predominant. Bernard Shaw had, then as now, a strong objection
to the peasant agriculture of his native land, and he submitted to the
Society a characteristic leaflet addressed: "To provident Landlords and
Capitalists, a suggestion and a warning." "The Fabian Society," it says,
"having in view the advance of Socialism and the threatened subversion
of the powers hitherto exercised by private proprietors of the national
land and capital ventures plainly to warn all such proprietors that the
establishment of Socialism in England means nothing less than the
compulsion of all members of the upper class, without regard to sex or
condition, to work for their own living." The tract, which is a very
brief one, goes on to recommend the proprietary classes to "support all
undertakings having for their object the parcelling out of waste or
inferior lands amongst the labouring class" for sundry plausible
reasons.
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