Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Beatrice Webb
-
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.
MH
quarrelled with her second cousin Beatrice Potter (later Beatrice Webb
), who up to now had been her close friend; their relationship never fully recovered.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.
Mitchell, Sally, editor. Victorian Britain: An Encyclopedia. Garland Press.
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...
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.
Ishbel Maria Gordon, Marchioness of Aberdeen, editor. Women in Industrial Life: The International Congress of Women of 1899. T. Fisher Unwin.
front matter
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
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
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...
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...
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
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
