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 an English 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, 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, Booth_%28philanthropist%29" target="_blank">Charles Booth, whose Life and Labour of the People of London categorised 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. Beatrice 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. When she died in 1943, Webb's ashes were interred in the nave of Westminster Abbey, close to those of her husband, of Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin.
