George Robert Stow Mead (22 March 1863, London – 28 September 1933, London) was an English historian, writer, editor, translator, and an influential member of the Theosophical Society, as well as the founder of the Quest Society. His works dealt with various religious and philosophical texts and traditions, including Neoplatonism, Hermeticism and Gnosticism.
Birth and family
Mead was born in Peckham, Surrey (now in London), England, to British Army Colonel Robert Mead and his wife Mary (née Stow), who had received a traditional education at Rochester Cathedral School.
Education
Mead began studying mathematics at St John's College, Cambridge. Eventually shifting his education towards the study of Classics, he gained much knowledge of Greek and Latin. In 1884 he completed a BA degree; in the same year he became a public school master. He received an MA degree in 1926.
Activity with the Theosophical Society
While still at Cambridge University, Mead read Esoteric Buddhism (1883) by Alfred Percy Sinnett, which presumably prompted his initial interest in Theosophy and led him to join Helena Petrovna Blavatsky's Theosophical Society in 1884.
After becoming Blavatsky's private secretary in 1889, Mead was elected as the general secretary (jointly with Bertram Keightley) of the Esoteric Section of the Theosophical Society as well as one of twelve members of its Inner Group. Mead met Laura Mary Cooper (later to become his wife) in the latter group, and attended all but one of the total of twenty meetings held for its members.
Together with Annie Besant, Mead was the last editor of the Theosophical magazine Lucifer (renamed The Theosophical Review in 1897) and served as the magazine's sole editor between 1907 and 1909, when it became defunct due to Mead leaving the Theosophical Society.
