Harriet Isabella (Isabel) Cooper-Oakley[1][2] (31 January 1854 – 3 March 1914), was a prominent Theosophist and author.[3]
She was born in Amritsar, India to (Frederic) Henry Cooper, C.B., commissioner of Lahore[4] and his wife Mary (née Steel), receiving a good education because of her father's belief in the value of education for women.[4] She had suffered a severe injury in an accident aged 23 which prevented her from walking for two years, during which time she intensified her reading.[4] She went on to study at Girton College, Cambridge. Whilst at the university, she met — and later married — fellow student Alfred John Oakley. They then both changed their surname to Cooper-Oakley. Alfred stayed some years at Adyar, India, as an assistant to Henry Steel Olcott. He left to become Registrar of the University of Madras.[5] Sometime in the late 1890s, G.R.S. Mead became her brother-in-law when he married her sister, another prominent Theosophist, Laura Cooper.
Isabel Cooper-Oakley died on March 3, 1914, at Budapest, Hungary.
