Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

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Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield PC (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, normally referred to in the same breath as his wife, Beatrice Webb.

He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884, along with G. Bernard Shaw (they joined three months after its inception). Together with Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland and Sidney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society in England in the Edwardian era and beyond.

Webb was born in London to a professional family. He studied law at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution for a degree of the University of London in his spare time, while holding down an office job, and in 1895 helped to establish the London School of Economics, using a bequest left to the Fabian Society by a benefactor. He was appointed its Professor of Public Administration in 1912, a post which he held for fifteen years. In 1892, Webb had married Beatrice Potter, who shared his interests and beliefs. The money she brought with her had enabled him to give up his clerical job and concentrate on his other activities.

Both were members of the Labour Party and took an active role in politics, Sidney becoming MP for Seaham at the the 1922 general election.^[1] The couple's influence can be seen in their hosting of the Coefficients, a dining club which attracted some of the leading statesmen and thinkers of the day. In 1929, he was created Baron Passfield, continuing as a government minister (serving as both Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs) under Ramsay MacDonald. In 1930 ailing health resulted in his stepping down from the Dominions Office, but retaining the Colonial Office. The Webbs were supporters of the Soviet Union until their deaths, their book, The Truth About Soviet Russia being published in 1942.

Webb co-authored a pivotal book on the History of Trade Unionism (1894) with wife Beatrice Webb.

In H.G. Wells's The New Machiavelli (1911), the Webbs, as 'the Baileys', are unmercifully lampooned as short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators. The Fabian Society, of which Wells was briefly a member (1903-08), fares no better in his estimation.

[edit] Archives

Sidney Webb's papers are among the Passfield archive at the London School of Economics. For a small online exhibition featuring some of these papers see 'A poor thing but our own': the Webbs and the Labour Party.

[edit] Bibliography

Works by Sidney Webb

• Facts for Socialists (1887)
• Problems of Modern Industry (1898)
• Grants in Aid: A Criticism and a Proposal (1911)
• Seasonal Trades, with A. Freeman (1912)
• The Restoration of Trade Union Conditions (1916)

Works by Sidney and Beatrice Webb

• History of Trade Unionism (1894)
• Industrial Democracy (1897)
• English Local Government Vol. I-X (1906 through 1929)
• The Manor and the Borough (1908)
• The Break-Up of the Poor Law (1909)
• English Poor-Law Policy (1910)
• The Cooperative Movement (1914)
• Works Manager Today (1917)
• The Consumer's Cooperative Movement (1921)
• Decay of Capitalist Civilization (1923)
• Methods of Social Study (1932)
• Soviet Communism: A new civilization? (1935)
• The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942)

[edit] References

1. ^ The History of the Fabian Society, Edward R. Pease, Frank Cass and Co. LTD, 1963

The History of the Fabian Society, Edward R. Pease, Frank Cass and Co. LTD, 1963

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Evan Hayward	Member of Parliament for Seaham 1922–1929	Succeeded by Ramsay Macdonald
Political offices
Preceded by Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame	President of the Board of Trade 1924	Succeeded by Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame
Preceded by Leopold Stennett Amery	Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs 1929–1930	Succeeded by James Henry Thomas
Preceded by Leopold Stennett Amery	Secretary of State for the Colonies 1929–1931	Succeeded by James Henry Thomas
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by (new creation)	Baron Passfield 1929–1947	Succeeded by (extinct)