Beatrice Webb

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Standard Name: Webb, Beatrice
Birth Name: Beatrice Potter
Married Name: Beatrice Webb
Indexed Name: Mrs Sidney Webb
Titled: Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield
An important and forceful left-wing intellectual (a shaper both of the Fabian Society and of the Labour Party ), BW wrote at the end of the nineteenth century and in the early twentieth century. Her subjects were social issues: for instance, unemployment, and the development of the co-operative movement and of trade unions. She was also (and from the same public-spirited motives) remarkable as a diarist and autobiographer. Almost all her writing on public topics (nearly forty publications, including eighteen monographs) was done in collaboration with her husband, Sidney Webb . So thoroughly are they thought of as one mind that joint biographies of them are more common than individual ones.
Black and white photograph of Beatrice Webb, seated with one arm resting on the arm of her chair. She is wearing a dark jacket with a light collar, and a polka-dotted tie. Her white hair is pulled back.

Connections

Connections Author name Excerpt
Literary responses Lady Cynthia Asquith
Robin Hone , reviewing, found a genial mist of restrained and charitable recollection, which ignored such jarring contrasts as that between this time and the First World War which was to follow, or between D. H. Lawrence
politics Annie Besant
Sidney and Beatrice Webb later acknowledged the importance of AB 's efforts to the new Unionism that became widespread after this year.
Taylor, Anne. Annie Besant: A Biography. Oxford University Press.
212
politics Clementina Black
In London she met Fabian and Marxist socialists. She was a good friend of Eleanor Marx for some time, though their friendship later waned.
Garnett, Richard. Constance Garnett: A Heroic Life. Sinclair-Stevenson.
40
One source notes that CB 's affinity with Fabianism likely...
Occupation Ann Bridge
Since, however, writing seemed unlikely to yield her a livelihood, she went immediately to work as assistant secretary for the Charity Organization Society , Chelsea branch. This paid her twenty-three shillings a week, with hours...
Education Emma Frances Brooke
The school, which was founded this year by Beatrice and Sidney Webb , Graham Wallas , and George Bernard Shaw , focused on the study of inequalities and poverty issues with the aim of improving...
Friends, Associates Emma Frances Brooke
EFB 's involvement with the socialist and feminist movements of the day brought her into close contact with several notable activists and revolutionaries. Through the Fabian Society , she interacted with Beatrice and Sidney Webb
Education Dorothy Bussy
Marie Souvestre was a free-thinking feminist, daughter of the French author and philosopher Emile Souvestre . Her school, Les Ruches, was widely admired for its academic rigour. It educated many outstanding women, including Beatrice Chamberlain
politics Jane Hume Clapperton
Among others the committee also included Clementina Black , Beatrice Webb , and Maud Pember Reeves . It was attended by Emma Brooke and Isabella Ford .
Ishbel Maria Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen, editor. Women in Industrial Life: The International Congress of Women of 1899. T. Fisher Unwin.
front matter
Textual Production Celia Fiennes
The title seems to place the work in a tradition of intrepid Englishwoman abroad, including Emma Roberts , Matilda Betham-Edwards , Isabella Bird , Mabel Sharman Crawford , and others. Beatrice and Sidney Webb consulted...
politics Katharine Bruce Glasier
After their marriage, KBG and her husband, John Bruce Glasier , formed an effective socialist partnership very much like that of Sidney and Beatrice Webb . They maintained their involvement in the Independent Labour Party
Friends, Associates Katharine Bruce Glasier
Her involvement in socialist circles led her to acquaintance with Sidney and Beatrice Webb , Edward Hulton (editor of the Sunday Chronicle), and Robert Blatchford , for whom she wrote several articles.
Thompson, Laurence. The Enthusiasts. Victor Gollancz Limited.
71
With...
Textual Production Mary Agnes Hamilton
MAH issued another political biography, entitled Sidney and Beatrice Webb : A Study in Contemporary Biography, undertaken because she felt that the Webbs were not sufficiently valued by the current generation.
Shadwell, Arthur. “Mr & Mrs Webb”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 1655, p. 702.
702
Friends, Associates Mary Agnes Hamilton
MAH knew and worked closely with the Labour leader Ramsay MacDonald , though her early intense admiration for him diminished with time. Up to the year after publishing her book on him (which was also...
Textual Production Mary Agnes Hamilton
In 1935, when she gathered a small group of Labour friends to discuss her project, she found that they gravitated inevitably to the topic of Henderson's relations with Ramsay MacDonald . Two years later she...
Travel Margaret Harkness
MH and her cousin Beatrice Potter (later Beatrice Webb ) travelled together to Austria.
Goode, John. “Margaret Harkness and the Socialist Novel”. The Socialist Novel in Britain: Towards the Recovery of a Tradition, edited by H. Gustav Klaus, Harvester Press, pp. 45-66.
48
Bellamy, Joyce M., and John Saville, editors. Dictionary of Labour Biography. Macmillan.
viii: 105

Timeline

January 1884: The Fabian Society was founded in London...

National or international item

January 1884

The Fabian Society was founded in London to publicize socialist ideas and investigate the application of socialist principles to British conditions.

12 August 1889: The London Dock Strike began; it aroused...

National or international item

12 August 1889

The London Dock Strike began; it aroused widespread sympathy for striking dockers.

March 1906: A company was set up, largely through the...

Building item

March 1906

A company was set up, largely through the efforts of Henrietta Barnett , for the development of Hampstead Garden Suburb just north of London, as a community including people of all classes and income levels.

13 August 1912: Octavia Hill, housing advocate and one-time...

Building item

13 August 1912

Octavia Hill , housing advocate and one-time friend of John Ruskin , died of cancer in her home at 190 Marylebone Road, London.

December 1927: Nancy Hewins opened the first production...

Building item

December 1927

Nancy Hewins opened the first production by her touring Osiris Players , Britain's first professional all-female theatre company (successor to the amateur Isis Players , which she had run as an Oxford undergraduate).

1928: Members of the British Federation of University...

Building item

1928

Members of the British Federation of University Women (later known as the British Federation of Women Graduates ) established the Sybil Campbell Libraryfor the study of the expansion of the role of women in recent generations.

Late July 1931: In Britain the confusingly-named May committee...

National or international item

Late July 1931

In Britain the confusingly-named May committee responded to escalation both in the international financial crisis and mass unemployment at home, by advising draconian cuts in government expenditure.

30 July 1932: The Independent Labour Party, increasingly...

National or international item

30 July 1932

The Independent Labour Party , increasingly disillusioned with the Labour Party 's movement towards the centre, took a decision to disaffiliate from its own larger and more successful offspring.

26 July 1945: The postwar general election put the Labour...

National or international item

26 July 1945

The postwar general election put the Labour Party in power with a landslide victory. Clement Attlee became Prime Minister; prominent in his Cabinet were Herbert Morrison , Ernest Bevin , Hugh Dalton , and Sir...

Texts

Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. A Constitution for the Socialist Commonwealth of Great Britain. Longmans, Green, 1920.
Webb, Beatrice, and William Henry, first Baron Beveridge. Beatrice Webb’s Diaries, 1912-1924. Editor Cole, Margaret I., Longmans, 1952.
Webb, Beatrice. Beatrice Webb’s Diaries, 1924-1932. Editor Cole, Margaret I., Longmans, 1956.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. English Local Government from the Revolution to the Municipal Corporations Act. Longmans, Green, 1929.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Industrial Democracy. Longmans, Green, 1897.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Methods of Social Study. Longmans, Green, 1932.
Webb, Beatrice. My Apprenticeship. Longmans, Green, 1926.
Webb, Beatrice. Our Partnership. Editors Drake, Barbara and Margaret I. Cole, Longmans, Green, 1948.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Soviet Communism: A New Civilization?. Longmans, Green, 1935.
Ward, Mary Augusta. The Case for the Factory Acts. Editor Webb, Beatrice, G. Richards, 1901.
Webb, Beatrice. The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain. Swann Sonnenschein, 1891.
Webb, Beatrice. The Diary of Beatrice Webb. Editors MacKenzie, Norman and Jeanne MacKenzie, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1985.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. The History of Trade Unionism. Longmans, Green, 1894.
Webb, Beatrice. The Wages of Men and Women: Should They be Equal?. Fabian Society, 1919.
Webb, Beatrice, and Sidney Webb. Visit to New Zealand in 1898. Price Milburn, 1959.
Webb, Beatrice. Women and the Factory Acts. Fabian Society, 1896.