BEATRICE WEBB

''This article is about the socialist politician. For the children's author, see Beatrix Potter.''
'Martha Beatrice Potter Webb' (January 22, 1858 - April 30, 1943) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, usually referred to in the same breath as her husband, Sidney Webb. Although her husband became Baron Passfield in 1929, she refused to be known as 'Lady Passfield'.
Beatrice Webb was born in Gloucester, Gloucestershire, the granddaughter of a Radical MP, Richard Potter. In 1882, she had a relationship with Radical politician Joseph Chamberlain, by then a Cabinet minister. This was a failure, and in 1890 she was introduced to Sidney Webb, whose help she sought in research she was carrying out for her cousin, Charles Booth's Life and Labour of the People of London. This catagorised the poorest into class A: "Vicious: borderline semi criminal" or class B "Casual earnings, very poor. The labourers do not get as much as three days work a week, but it is doubtful if many could or would work full time for long together if they had the opportunity". Marrying Sidney in 1892, the two remained together. Beartrice was an active partner in all Sidney's political and professional activities, including the organisation of the Fabian Society and the establishment of the London School of Economics. She co-authored books such as the ''History of Trade Unionism'' (1894), and was co-founder of the ''New Statesman'' magazine (1913).
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.
Webb's nephew, Sir Stafford Cripps, became a well-known British Labour politician in the 1930s and 1940s. Her niece, Barbara Drake, was a prominent member trade unionist and a member of the Fabian Society.

Contents

Webb as Co-operative Theorist

Archives

Bibliography

References

Webb as Co-operative Theorist

Webb has made a number of important contributions to political and economic theory of the Co-operative movement. It was, for example, Webb who coined the terms Co-operative Federalism and Co-operative Individualism in her 1891 book "Cooperative Movement in Great Britain." Out of these two categories, Webb identified herself as a Co-operative Federalist; a school of thought which advocates Consumer Co-operative societies. Webb argued that Consumers' Co-operatives should form co-operative wholesale societies (by forming Co-operatives in which all members are co-operatives, the best historical example being the English CWS) and that these Federal Co-operatives should undertake purchasing farms or factories. Webb dismissed the idea of Worker cooperatives where the people who did the work and benefited from it had some control over how it was done, arguing that - at the time she was writing - such ventures had proved largely unsuccessful, at least in ushering in her form of socialism led by volunteer committees of people like herself ^[1] Examples of successful Worker Cooperatives did of course exist then as now. In some professions they were the norm. But Webbs final book, ''The Truth About The Soviet Union'' celebrated central planning.

Archives

Beatrice Webb's papers, including her diaries, 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.

Bibliography

Works by Beatrice Potter Webb

★ Cooperative Movement in Great Britain (1891)

★ (1919)

★ My Apprenticeship (1926)

★ Our Partnership (1948)
Works by Beatrice and Sidney 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)

★ (1935)

★ The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942)

References

1. Potter, Beatrice, “The Co-operative Movement in Great Britain”, London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1891.