Episode 77. Sidney and Beatrice Webb

SYNOPSIS

Few historic figures have left as significant a testimony to their political beliefs as the economists, socialists and reformers Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield (1859-1947) and his wife Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield (1858-1943). in the 2020s, three distinct organizations continue to thrive as their legacy: a think tank, the Fabian Society, a political and current affairs magazine, The New Statesman, and a university, The London School of Economics and Political Science.

Their fifty-year partnership produced books and reports rather than children. Determined to permeate the British establishment with their reforming agenda, the Webbs employed meticulous research, private persuasion and hospitality, barnstorming public campaigning and hard political organization to further their objectives.

Based upon his encyclopedic 2024 biography of the Webbs’ unique partnership, the first serious reconsideration of their influence on British politics for decades, Michael Ward outlines how the Webbs went about changing the political landscape of their time and engineering a paradigm shift in attitudes to poverty and social welfare.

GUESTS

Michael Ward studied Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford and Economic and Social History at Birkbeck, College, University of London. Michael then embarked on a distinguished career in economic development at the Greater London Council, the Centre for Local Economic Strategies, Manchester, and the London Development Agency, where he was Chief Executive. The fruit of ten years of research, Unceasing War on Poverty: Beatrice & Sidney Webb and Their World was published in 2024.

Simon’s interview with Michael Ward was recorded at his Arundel home on 23 October 2025.