Fabian Window
Encyclopedia
The founders of the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

 are depicted in the famous stained-glass Fabian Window
designed by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

. The window was stolen in 1978 and reappeared at Sotheby's in 2005. It was restored to display in the Shaw Library at the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 in 2006 at a ceremony over which Tony Blair
Tony Blair
Anthony Charles Lynton Blair is a former British Labour Party politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2 May 1997 to 27 June 2007. He was the Member of Parliament for Sedgefield from 1983 to 2007 and Leader of the Labour Party from 1994 to 2007...

 presided.

Design and construction

The stained glass window was designed by George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 in 1910 as a commemoration of the Fabian Society, and shows fellow Society members Sidney Webb and Edward R. Pease
Edward R. Pease
Edward Reynolds Pease was an English writer and a founding member of the Fabian Society.Pease, the sixth of fifteen children, was born near Bristol, the son of devout Quakers, Thomas Pease and Susanna Ann Fry sister of Edward Fry, the judge...

, among others, helping to build 'the new world'. Four Fabians, Beatrice
Beatrice Webb
Martha Beatrice Webb, Lady Passfield was an English sociologist, economist, socialist and social reformer. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as Lady Passfield...

 and Sidney Webb, Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics....

, and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...

 founded the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 with the money left to the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

 by Henry Hutchinson. Supposedly the decision was made at a breakfast party on 4 August 1894. Artist Caroline Townshend (cousin of Shaw's wife Charlotte Payne-Townshend
Charlotte Payne-Townshend
Charlotte Payne-Townshend was a British political activist. She was a member of the Fabian Society and was dedicated to the struggle for women's rights....

 and daughter of Fabian and Suffragette
Suffragette
"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...

 Emily Townshend) created the Fabian window, according to Shaw's design in 1910. Also included in the window besides Shaw and Townshend themselves, were other prominent Fabians such as H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...

, Annie Besant
Annie Besant
Annie Besant was a prominent British Theosophist, women's rights activist, writer and orator and supporter of Irish and Indian self rule.She was married at 19 to Frank Besant but separated from him over religious differences. She then became a prominent speaker for the National Secular Society ...

, Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas
Graham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics....

, Hubert Bland
Hubert Bland
Hubert Bland was an early English socialist and one of the founders of the Fabian Society.Born in Woolwich, south-east London, Bland wanted to join the army but instead became a bank clerk. In 1877, he met 19-year-old Edith Nesbit, a follower of William Morris. They married on 22 April 1880 with...

, Edith Nesbit
E. Nesbit
Edith Nesbit was an English author and poet whose children's works were published under the name of E. Nesbit. She wrote or collaborated on over 60 books of fiction for children, several of which have been adapted for film and television...

, Sydney Olivier
Sydney Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier
Sydney Haldane Olivier, 1st Baron Olivier, KCMG, CB, PC , was a British civil servant. A Fabian and a member of the Labour Party, he served as Governor of Jamaica and as Secretary of State for India in the first government of Ramsay MacDonald...

, Oliver Lodge, Leonard Woolf
Leonard Woolf
Leonard Sidney Woolf was an English political theorist, author, publisher and civil servant, and husband of author Virginia Woolf.-Early life:...

, and Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst
Emmeline Pankhurst was a British political activist and leader of the British suffragette movement which helped women win the right to vote...

..

For whatever reason, Shaw never collected the window from her workshop. The belief is that it remained there until 1947, when Mrs Townsend's niece Eva Bourne, also a stained glass artist, presented it to Beatrice Webb House, Holmbury St Mary
Holmbury St Mary
Holmbury St. Mary is a village near Abinger in the Mole Valley district of Surrey, England located within the Hurtwood, the largest area of common land in Surrey. Nearby to the south is Holmbury Hill, which at is the fourth highest point in Surrey. The village itself is named after the hill and...

, near Dorking
Dorking
Dorking is a historic market town at the foot of the North Downs approximately south of London, in Surrey, England.- History and development :...

. This was the year the house was formally opened by the Webb Memorial Trust as a conference and educational venue for the Labour party and the Fabian Society
Fabian Society
The Fabian Society is a British socialist movement, whose purpose is to advance the principles of democratic socialism via gradualist and reformist, rather than revolutionary, means. It is best known for its initial ground-breaking work beginning late in the 19th century and continuing up to World...

, officially opened by Clement Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...

, who also unveiled the Fabian Window at LSE, having been a former lecturer.

Theft and recovery

The window was subsequently stolen from the house in 1978 and surfaced in Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix, Arizona
Phoenix is the capital, and largest city, of the U.S. state of Arizona, as well as the sixth most populated city in the United States. Phoenix is home to 1,445,632 people according to the official 2010 U.S. Census Bureau data...

, soon after but then disappeared again until it suddenly appeared for sale at Sotheby’s in July 2005. The Webb Memorial Trust re-purchased it and have now loaned it to LSE to sit alongside the painting of LSE founders Sidney and Beatrice Webb by William Nicholson
William Nicholson
William Nicholson may refer to:*William Nicholson , Bishop of Gloucester*William Nicholson *William Nicholson , U.S...

 in the School's Shaw Library.

Tony Blair

Tony Blair spoke about the remarkable way the Fabians influenced the Labour party, not just in its creation but also in its economic, political and intellectual development. 'Despite all the very obvious differences in policy and attitude and positioning... a lot of the values that the Fabians and George Bernard Shaw stood for would be very recognisable, at least I hope they would, in today's Labour party. One of the things I think they were best at was being utterly iconoclastic about the traditional thinking that governed our country and indeed constantly, whenever a piece of conventional wisdom came out, they questioned that conventional wisdom in its fundamentals, and did so with remarkable success.'

Howard Davies

Director of LSE Howard Davies said: 'It is a great honour for the School to have this piece of national heritage on campus. The window will be a visible reminder to students, staff and visitors of the School's historical links with Shaw, the Webbs and other Fabians, whose ideas continue to influence our thinking about society, economics and politics.'

External links





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