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 a hall the Queen's hall capable of holding 4000 people for cheap concerts and lectures. There were soon added a swimming-bath, library, technical schools, winter garden, gymnasium, art schools, lecture rooms, and rooms for social recreation. Besant actively engaged in the management, was leader of the literary circle, and edited a 'Palace Journal.' But the effort failed, to Besant' s regret, to realise his chief hope. Under the increased patronage and control of the Drapers' Company, the educational side encroached on the social and recreative side until the scheme developed into the East London Technical College, and finally into the East London College, which was in 1908 recognised as a branch of London University. A portion of the People's Palace was maintained under that title for social and recreative purposes, but it became a subsidiary feature of the institution (see article by in Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1890; cf. Century Magazine, June 1890, and Guide to the People's Palace, 1900).

At C. G. Leland's suggestion Besant took, in 1884, another step in promoting beneficial recreation. He initiated 'The Home Arts and Industries Association,' which established evening schools through the country for the voluntary teaching and practice of the minor arts, such as wood-carving, leather-work, fretwork, weaving, and embroidery. There are now some 500 schools, and annual exhibitions of work are held. Besant also suggested in 1897 the Women's Central Bureau for the employment of women, hi connection with the National Union of Women Workers.

At the same time much of Besant's public spirit was absorbed by an effort to improve the financial status of his own profession of author. In 1884 he and some dozen other authors formed the Society of Authors, with Lord Tennyson as president and leaders in all branches of literature as vice-presidents. The society's object was threefold, viz. the maintenance, definition, and defence of literary property ; the consolidation and amendment of laws of domestic copyright; and the promotion of international copyright. Besant, who organised the first committee of management and was chairman of committee from 1889 till 1892, was the life and soul of the movement throughout its initial stages. On 15 May 1890 he started, with himself as editor, 'The Author,' a monthly organ of propaganda. He represented the society at an authors' congress at Chicago with Mr. S. Squire Sprigge) in 1893 and gave an account of its early struggles and growth. In his lifetime the original Membership of sixty-eight grew to nearly 2000. The society's endeavour to secure copyright reform under his direction proved substantially successful and influenced new copyright legislation in America in 1891, in Canada in 1900 and in Great Britain in 1911. But Besant's chief aim was to strengthen the author's right in his literary property and to relieve him of traditional financial disabilities, which Besant ascribed in part to veteran customs of the publishing trade, n part to publishing devices which savoured of dishonesty, and in part to the unbusinesslike habits of authors. His agitation brought, him into conflict with publishers of high standing, who justly resented some of his sweeping generalisations concerning the character of publishing operations. Like other earnest controversialists Besant tended to exaggerate his case, which in the main was sound. The leading results of his propaganda were advantageous to authors. He practically established through the country the principle that author's accounts with publishers should be subject to audit. He exposed many fraudulent practices on the part of disreputable publishers, both here and in America, and gave injured authors a ready means of redressing their grievances. At Besant's instigation the society's pension fund for impoverished authors was started in 1901. In 1892 he established an Authors' Club in connection with the society, and in 1899, in his 'The Pen and the Book,' he tave his final estimate of the authors' nancial and legal position. In George Meredith's words, Besant was 'a valorous, alert, persistent advocate' of the authors' cause and sought 'to establish a system of fair dealing between the sagacious publishers of books and the inexperienced, often heedless, producers' (Author, July 1901). In 1895 Besant, who had already advocated the more frequent bestowal on authors of titles of honour, was knighted on Lord Rosebery's recommendation. He had been elected in 1887 a member of the Athenaeum under Rule II.

In Oct. 1894 Besant entered on what he considered his greatest work, which was inspired conjointly by his literary and public interests. He resolved to prepare a survey of modern London on the lines on which Stow had dealt with Tudor London. With the aid of experts, he arranged to describe the changing aspects of London from the earliest times till the end of the nineteenth