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Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield

Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, OM, PC (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist, reformer and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884, who like George Bernard Shaw joined three months after its inception. Along with his wife Beatrice Webb, Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland, and Sydney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent political-intellectual society in Edwardian England. He wrote the original, pro-nationalisation Clause IV for the British Labour Party.

The Right Honourable

The Lord Passfield

OM PC
President of the Board of Trade
In office
22 January 1924 – 3 November 1924
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded bySir Philip Lloyd-Graeme
Succeeded bySir Philip Lloyd-Graeme
Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs
In office
7 June 1929 – 5 June 1930
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byLeo Amery
Succeeded byJames Henry Thomas
Secretary of State for the Colonies
In office
7 June 1929 – 24 August 1931
MonarchGeorge V
Prime MinisterRamsay MacDonald
Preceded byLeo Amery
Succeeded byJames Henry Thomas
Personal details
Born(1859-07-13)13 July 1859
London
Died13 October 1947(1947-10-13)(aged 88)
Liphook, Hampshire
NationalityBritish
Political partyLabour
Spouse(s)Beatrice Potter
(1858–1943)
Alma materBirkbeck, University of London
King's College London

Background and education

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. He also studied at King's College London, prior to being called to the Bar in 1885.

Professional life

In 1895, he helped to establish the London School of Economics, using a bequest left to the Fabian Society. He was appointed Professor of Public Administration in 1912, a post he held for fifteen years. In 1892, Webb married Beatrice Potter, who shared his interests and beliefs.[1] The money she brought with her enabled him to give up his clerical job and concentrate on his other activities. Sidney and Beatrice Webb founded the New Statesman magazine in 1913.[2]

Political career

Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb

Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb

Webb and Potter were members of the Labour Party and took an active role in politics. Sidney became Member of Parliament for Seaham at the 1922 general election.[3] 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.[4] He served as both Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs in Ramsay MacDonald second Labour Government in 1929. As Colonial Secretary he issued the Passfield White Paper 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.

Ignoring mounting evidence of the atrocities committed by Joseph Stalin, the Webbs were supporters of the Soviet Union until their deaths. Having reached their seventies and early eighties, their books Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935) and The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942) give a very positive assessment of Joseph Stalin's regime. Trotskyist historian Al Richardson later described Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? as "pure Soviet propaganda at its most mendacious".[5]

Writings

Webb co-authored, with his wife, a pivotal book on The History of Trade Unionism (1894). For the Fabian Society he wrote on poverty in London,[6] the eight-hour day,[7][8] land nationalisation[9] the nature of socialism,[10] education,[11] eugenics[12] and reform of the House of Lords.[13] He also drafted Clause IV, which committed the Labour Party to public ownership of industry.

References in literature

Beatrice and Sidney Webb working together in 1895

Beatrice and Sidney Webb working together in 1895

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

In her diary [68] , Beatrice Webb records that they have "read the caricatures of ourselves … with much interest and amusement. The portraits are very clever in a malicious way."[14] She reviews the book and Wells' character in detail, summarising: "As an attempt at representing a political philosophy the book utterly fails …".[15]

Personal life

When Beatrice Webb died in 1943, the casket containing her ashes was buried in the garden of their house in Passfield Corner. Lord Passfield's ashes were also buried there in 1947. Shortly afterwards, George Bernard Shaw launched a petition to have both reburied to Westminster Abbey, which was eventually granted. Today, the Webbs' ashes are interred in the nave of Westminster Abbey, close to those of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin.

He and his wife were friends with the philosopher Bertrand Russell.[16]

In 2006, the London School of Economics, 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. [69] Posts about Sidney Webb regularly appear in the LSE Archives blog, Out of the box. [70]

References

[1]
Citation Linkwww.britannica.com"Sidney and Beatrice Webb | British economists". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 25 August 2017.
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[2]
Citation Linkwww.newstatesman.comThe world movement towards collectivism, Beatrice and Sidney Webb, New Statesman, 12 April 1913;Bending the arc of history towards justice and freedom, New Statesman, 12 April 2013; retrieved 13 May 2014.
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[3]
Citation Linkopenlibrary.orgThe History of the Fabian Society, Edward R. Pease, Frank Cass and Co. LTD, 1963
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[4]
Citation Linkwww.thegazette.co.uk"No. 33509". The London Gazette. 25 June 1929. p. 4189.
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[5]
Citation Linkopenlibrary.orgAl Richardson, "Introduction" to C. L. R. James, World Revolution 1917–1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International. Humanities Press, 1937 ISBN 0-391-03790-0
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[6]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1889), "Facts for Londoners: An exhaustive collection of statistical and other facts relating to the metropolis: with suggestions for reform on socialist principles", Fabian Tract, 8
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[7]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (May 1890), "An Eight Hours Bill in the form of an amendment of the Factory Acts, with further provisions for the improvement of the conditions of labour", Fabian Tract, 9
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[8]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1891), "The case for an Eight Hours Bill", Fabian Tract, 23
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[9]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1890), "Practicable land nationalization", Fabian Tract, 12
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[10]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (21 January 1894), "Socialism: true and false. A lecture delivered to the Fabian Society", Fabian Tract, 51
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[11]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1901), "The education muddle and the way out: a constructive criticism of English educational machinery", Fabian Tract, 106
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[12]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1907), "The decline in the birth-rate", Fabian Tract, 131
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[13]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukWebb, Sidney (1917), "The reform of the House of Lords", Fabian Tract, 183
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[14]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukBeatrice Webb's typescript diary, 2 January 1901 – 10 February 1911, LSE Digital Library http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:won715bor/read#page/622/mode/2up
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[15]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukBeatrice Webb's typescript diary, 2 January 1901 – 10 February 1911, LSE Digital Library http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/objects/lse:won715bor/read#page/622/mode/2up/
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[16]
Citation Linkopenlibrary.orgAutobiography of Bertrand Russell (London:Allen and Unwin, 1969).
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[17]
Citation Linkwebbs.library.lse.ac.ukFacts for Socialists
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[18]
Citation Linkwebbs.library.lse.ac.ukFabian Essays in Socialism – The Basis of Socialism – Historic
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[19]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukA plea for an eight hours bill
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM
[20]
Citation Linkdigital.library.lse.ac.ukEnglish progress towards social democracy
Sep 19, 2019, 8:38 AM