Sidney Webb

He wrote the original, pro-nationalisation Clause IV for the British Labour Party.

Sidney Webb studied at Birkbeck, University of London, King's College London and The Dickson Poon School of Law. The recorded working language is English. The field of work recorded is economics. Places of work recorded in the authority are London. Employment is recorded with London School of Economics and Political Science. Positions recorded include President of the Board of Trade and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs. Distinctions recorded are Order of Merit.

• Honorific Prefix — The Right Honourable • Name — The Lord Passfield • Honorific Suffix — OM PC • Order1 — President of the Board of Trade • Term Start1 — 22 January 1924 • Term End1 — 3 November 1924 • Monarch1 — George V • Prime Minister1 — Ramsay MacDonald • Predecessor1 — Sir Philip Lloyd-Graeme • Successor1 — Sir Philip Lloyd-Graeme • Order2 — Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs • Term Start2 — 7 June 1929 • Term End2 — 5 June 1930 • Monarch2 — George V • Prime Minister2 — Ramsay MacDonald • Predecessor2 — Leo Amery • Successor2 — James Henry Thomas • Order3 — Secretary of State for the Colonies • Term Start3 — 7 June 1929 • Term End3 — 24 August 1931 • Monarch3 — George V • Prime Minister3 — Ramsay MacDonald • Predecessor3 — Leo Amery • Successor3 — James Henry Thomas • Born — 13 July 1859 • Birthplace — London, England • Died — 13 October 1947 • Place of death — Liphook, Hampshire, England • Party — Labour • Education — Birkbeck, University of London King's College London • Birth Name — Sidney James Webb

Webb was born at 45, Cranbourn Street, near Leicester Square, London, the second of three children of Charles Webb (1828/9-1891) and Elizabeth Mary (1820/21-1895), née Stacey. His father was "variously described as an accountant, a perfumer, and a hairdresser"; his mother was a "hairdresser and dealer in toiletries". Webb's upbringing was "comfortable", the family employing a live-in servant; his father was "a man of local substance" as a rate collector, guardian, and sergeant in a volunteer regiment. Having attended a "first-class middle class day school" at St Martin's Lane, and his parents having sent him abroad to Switzerland and Germany to extend his education, Webb later studied law at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution for a degree of the University of London in his spare time, while holding an office job. He also studied at King's College London, before being called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1885.

In 1895, Webb helped to found the London School of Economics with a bequest left to the Fabian Society. He was appointed its Professor of Public Administration in 1912 and held the post for 15 years. In 1892, he married Beatrice Potter, who shared his interests and beliefs. The money she contributed to the marriage 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.

• Illustration — 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. The couple's influence can be seen in their hosting of the Coefficients, a dining club that drew in some leading statesmen and thinkers of the day. In 1929, he was created Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner in the County of Southampton. He served as Secretary of State for the Colonies and as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs in Ramsay MacDonald's second Labour Government in 1929. As Colonial Secretary he issued the Passfield White Paper that revised the government policy on 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 until the fall of the Labour government in August 1931.

When his wife, Beatrice, died in 1943, the casket of her ashes was buried in the garden of their house in Passfield Corner, as were those of Lord Passfield in 1947. Shortly afterwards, George Bernard Shaw launched a petition to have both reburied in Westminster Abbey, which was eventually granted – the Webbs' ashes are interred in the nave, close to those of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin. The Webbs were also friends of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In 2006, the London School of Economics, alongside the Housing Association, renamed its Great Dover Street student residence Sidney Webb House in his honour.

The authorities additionally record the heading Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield. His recorded language was English. He was the child of Charles Webb and Elizabeth Mary Stacey. He married Beatrice Webb.

Sidney Webb worked in economics. He was employed by London School of Economics and Political Science. Recorded positions include President of the Board of Trade, Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs, Secretary of State for the Colonies, Member of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom and member of the 34th Parliament of the United Kingdom. He worked at London.

Sidney Webb is recorded as politician, professor, economist, historian and sociologist.

• Illustration — 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 (1903–1908), fares no better in his estimation. Beatrice Webb in her diary records that they "read the caricatures of ourselves... with much interest and amusement. The portraits are very clever in a malicious way." She reviews the book and Wells's character, summarising: "As an attempt at representing a political philosophy the book utterly fails..."

• Mackenzie, Norman, ed. The Letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb (3 volumes. Cambridge University Press, 1978, pp. xvii, 453; xi, 405; ix, 482) • Volume 1. Apprenticeships 1873–1892 (1978) • Volume 2. Partnership 1892–1912 (1978) • Volume 3. Pilgrimage, 1912–1947 (1978)