Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield PC
OMThe Order of Merit is a British dynastic order recognising distinguished service in the armed forces, science, art, literature, or for the promotion of culture...
(13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist, reformer and a co-founder of the
London School of EconomicsThe 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...
. He was one of the early members of the
Fabian SocietyThe 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...
in 1884, along with
George Bernard ShawGeorge 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...
(they joined three months after its inception). Along with his wife,
Beatrice WebbMartha 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...
,
Annie BesantAnnie 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 WallasGraham Wallas was an English socialist, social psychologist, educationalist, a leader of the Fabian Society and a co-founder of the London School of Economics....
,
Edward R. PeaseEdward 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...
,
Hubert BlandHubert 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...
, and
Sydney OlivierSydney 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...
, Shaw and Webb turned the
Fabian SocietyThe 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...
into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society of England in the Edwardian era and beyond. He wrote the original Clause IV for the British
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
.
Background and education
Webb was born in London to a professional family. He studied law at the
Birkbeck Literary and Scientific InstitutionBirkbeck, University of London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. It offers many Master's and Bachelor's degree programmes that can be studied either part-time or full-time, though nearly all teaching is...
for a degree of the
University of London-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...
in his spare time, while holding down an office job. He also studied at
King's College LondonKing's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...
, prior to being called to the Bar in 1885.
Professional life
In 1895 he helped to establish the
London School of EconomicsThe 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...
, using a bequest left to the
Fabian SocietyThe 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...
. He was appointed its Professor of Public Administration in 1912, a post which he held for fifteen years. In 1892, Webb married Beatrice Potter, who shared his interests and beliefs. The money she brought with her enabled him to give up his clerical job and concentrate on his other activities.
Political career
Webb and Potter were members of the
Labour PartyThe Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
and took an active role in politics. Sidney became
Member of ParliamentA Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
for
SeahamSeaham was a parliamentary constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was in existence between 1918 and 1950. It elected one Member of Parliament by the first past the post system of election...
at the
1922 general electionThe United Kingdom general election of 1922 was held on 15 November 1922. It was the first election held after most of the Irish counties left the United Kingdom to form the Irish Free State, and was won by Andrew Bonar Law's Conservatives, who gained an overall majority over Labour, led by John...
. 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 raised to the peerage as
Baron Passfield, of Passfield Corner in the County of Southampton. He served as both
Secretary of State for the ColoniesThe Secretary of State for the Colonies or Colonial Secretary was the British Cabinet minister in charge of managing the United Kingdom's various colonial dependencies....
and
Secretary of State for Dominion AffairsThe position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was a British cabinet level position created in 1925 responsible for British relations with the Dominions — Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Newfoundland, and the Irish Free State, as well as the self-governing colony of...
in
Ramsay MacDonaldJames Ramsay MacDonald, PC, FRS was a British politician who was the first ever Labour Prime Minister, leading a minority government for two terms....
second Labour Government in 1929. As Colonial Secretary he issued the
Passfield White PaperThe Passfield White Paper, issued October 20, 1930, by colonial secretary Lord Passfield, was a formal statement of British policy in Palestine, which previously had been set by the Churchill White Paper of 1922...
revising the government's policy in Palestine, previously set by the Churchill White Paper of 1922. In 1930 failing health caused him to step down as Dominions Secretary, but he stayed on as Colonial Secretary till the fall of the Labour government in August 1931.
The Webbs were supporters of the
Soviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
until their deaths. Their books,
Soviet Communism: A new civilization? (1935) and
The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942) have been widely criticized for adopting a largely uncritical view of Stalin's conduct during periods that witnessed a brutal process of agricultural collectivization as well as extensive purges.
Writings
Webb co-authored, with his wife, a pivotal book on the
History of Trade UnionismHistory of Trade Unionism is a book by Sidney and Beatrice Webb.First published in 1894, it is a detailed and influential accounting of the roots and development of the British trade union movement. The research materials collected by the Webbs form the Webb Collection at the London School of...
(1894). For the Fabian Society he wrote on poverty in
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, the
eight-hour dayThe eight-hour day movement or 40-hour week movement, also known as the short-time movement, had its origins in the Industrial Revolution in Britain, where industrial production in large factories transformed working life and imposed long hours and poor working conditions. With working conditions...
, land nationalisation the nature of
socialismSocialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
,
educationEducation in its broadest, general sense is the means through which the aims and habits of a group of people lives on from one generation to the next. Generally, it occurs through any experience that has a formative effect on the way one thinks, feels, or acts...
,
eugenicsEugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
and reform of the House of Lords.
Personal life
Their ashes are interred in the nave of
Westminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
, close to those of
Clement AttleeClement 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...
and
Ernest BevinErnest Bevin was a British trade union leader and Labour politician. He served as general secretary of the powerful Transport and General Workers' Union from 1922 to 1945, as Minister of Labour in the war-time coalition government, and as Foreign Secretary in the post-war Labour Government.-Early...
. One of the
LSEThe 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...
student residences, on
Great Dover StreetGreat Dover Street is in Southwark, south London, England. At the northwest end it joins Marshalsea Road and Borough High Street and there is a junction with Long Lane; Borough tube station is at this location. At the southeast end is the Bricklayers' Arms roundabout and flyover...
in London, is named Sidney Webb House, in his honour. In 2006 LSE, alongside the Housing Association landlord Places for People, renamed their Great Dover Street Student Residence Sidney Webb House in his honour.
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. Posts about Sidney Webb regularly appear in the LSE Archives blog,
Out of the box.
External links