Webb, Sidney (James) and Beatrice

Beatrice Webb orig. Martha Beatrice Potter

born July 13, 1859, London, Eng.

died Oct. 13, 1947, Liphook, Hampshire

born Jan. 22, 1858, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, Eng.

died April 30, 1943, Liphook, Hampshire

English socialist economists.

Sidney was a civil service clerk when George Bernard Shaw induced him to join the Fabian Society in 1885. He wrote the first Fabian tract, Facts for Socialists (1887), and took to lecturing on socialism. In 1891 he met Beatrice, author of The Cooperative Movement in Great Britain (1891), and they were married in 1892. Together they wrote the influential The History of Trade Unionism (1894) and Industrial Democracy (1897). As a member of the London County Council (1892–1910), Sidney effected extensive reforms in public education. The Webbs cofounded the London School of Economics and helped reorganize the University of London. As a member of the Poor Laws commission (1905–09), Beatrice wrote a report that anticipated the welfare state. In 1914 they joined the Labour Party, and Sidney wrote its influential policy statement, Labour and the New Social Order (1918). Sidney served in Parliament (1922–29) and as colonial secretary (1929–31), having been created Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner in 1929. Impressed by the Soviet Union after their trip in 1932, the Webbs wrote Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935), in which they seemed to abandon their belief in gradual social and political evolution.

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