View source for Joseph Bibby

'''ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION'''<br>
'''ARTICLE UNDER CONSTRUCTION'''<br>
[[File:Joseph Bibby.jpg|right|230px|thumb|Joseph Bibby]]
'''Joseph Bibby''' (1851–1940) was an English industrialist and member of the [[Theosophical Society (Adyar)|Theosophical Society based in Adyar, Chennai, India]] He is best known as the editor of ''Bibby's Annual''. 

== Family life ==

Clara Codd wrote of the Bibby family:
<blockquote>
He lived in a beautiful house and grounds near Birkenhead; and all his eight children, six boys and two girls, lived with him. I never met a happier family. They never quarreled and when the sons married, they built another house near their father's Two of his sons were killed in the first world war and another was badly wounded... Mrs. Bibby was a frail, sweet little lady of Quaker extraction... she started life with him in a working-man's cottage.

Often have I stayed at the Bibby's home. The first time I went there, the youngest boy and girl met me at the train. I noticed they were convulsed with giggles. At home Mrs. Bibby said to me: "You won't mind, but the children were so funny. I asked them if they found you easily, and they said, 'Oh! Yes Mama, there was such a strong smell of fish about.'"<ref>Clara Codd, ''So Rich a Life'' (Pretoria: Institute for Theosophical Publicity, 1956), 103-104.</ref> 
</blockquote>

== Business ==

Mr. Bibby's manufacturing business produced soap and animal feed, such as oil cakes for cattle.<ref>T. A. B. Corley, "Bibby, Joseph (1851–1940)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''. 2004. Available online by subscription at [http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/46631 this website].</ref>

== Theosophic Society involvement ==

Joseph Bibby became a member of the Theosophical Society in Liverpool on January 23, 1889.<ref>Theosophical Society General Membership Register, 1875-1942 at [http://tsmembers.org/ http://tsmembers.org/]. See book 1, entry 4831 (website file: 1b/50).</ref>

Bibby met young [[Clara Codd]], when she began touring England as a lecturer in 1906. She became a frequent visitor to the Bibby home. He proposed to send Clara for a two-year course at the Theosophical Society [[Adyar (campus)|headquarters]] in Adyar, Madras, India, and financed the trip.

== Publication of ''Bibby's Annual'' ==

Of this enterprise, Clara Codd wrote,
<blockquote>
His great delight was the editing of his famous Bibby's Annual. Many will remember its outstanding articles and its gloriously reproduced pictures. The articles were his way of helping the Theosophical Society, though he also gave large sums of money, too. Sometimes I would go with him to picture galleries of all kinds to find pictures to reproduce in his magazine. Because he would accept no advertisements, he lost, so he told me, a regular £1,000 a year on his journal. But he willingly lost it because of the good it did. It had a circulation all over the world of about one million. As far away as New Zealand did I discover Bibby's Annual."<ref>Clara Codd, ''So Rich a Life'' (Pretoria: Institute for Theosophical Publicity, 1956), 103-104.</ref>
</blockquote>

In 1922, publication came to an end.
<blockquote>
Theosophists the world about will learn with deep regret that ''Bibby's Annual'' for 1922 announces the discontinuance of that beautiful periodical. To learn that this masterpiece of artistic printing is to cease publication is much like hearing that a dear friend has passed on. For many years ''Bibby's Annual'' has carried the gospel of Theosophy into multiplied thousands of homes in all parts of the world. Its reading matter was edited with the same care that was given to the art subjects from which its wealth of pictures was drawn. "Perfection" is a word that should be used with caution, but it may safely be said of ''Bibby's Annual'' that very few things in any realm of human effort have come so near to the goal of perfection.<ref>Anonymous, "Bibby's Annual Discontinue" ''The Messenger'' 9.12 (May, 1922), 266.</ref>
</blockquote>

== Additional resources ==
* [https://www.theosophy.world/encyclopedia/bibby-joseph Bibby, Joseph] in Theosophy World

== Notes ==
<references/>
[[Category:Editors|Bibby, Joseph]]
[[Category:Business careers|Bibby, Joseph]]
[[Category:Industrialists|Bibby, Joseph]]
[[Category:Nationality English|Bibby, Joseph]]
[[Category:TS Adyar|Bibby, Joseph]]
[[Category:People|Bibby, Joseph]]