WEBB, SIDNEY AND BEATRICE

born July 13, 1859, London died Oct. 13, 1947, Liphook, Hampshire, Eng. born Jan. 22, 1858, Gloucester, Gloucestershire died April 30, 1943, Liphook in full respectively Sidney James Webb, Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner, and Martha Beatrice Webb, ne Potter English Socialist economists (husband and wife), early members of the Fabian Society, and co-founders of the London School of Economics and Political Science. Sidney Webb also helped reorganize the University of London into a federation of teaching institutions and served in the government as a Labour Party member. Pioneers in social and economic reforms as well as distinguished historians, the Webbs deeply affected social thought and institutions in England. Additional reading M.A. Hamilton, Sidney and Beatrice Webb (1933), is the only authorized biography, written by a personal acquaintance who was Labour MP for Blackburn, 1929-31. Margaret Cole, Beatrice Webb (1945), written with Sidney Webb's approval immediately after the subject's death, made use of the Webb diaries, available then for the first time. Margaret Cole (ed.), The Webbs and Their Work (1949), includes essays by Bernard Shaw and 17 other contemporaries on various aspects of the Webbs' work.