Beatrice Webb
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Beatrice Webb FBA |
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Webb, photographed c. 1875
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| Personal details | |
| Born |
Martha Beatrice Potter 22 January 1858 Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 30 April 1943 (aged 85) Liphook, Hampshire, England |
| Spouse(s) | Sidney Webb |
Martha Beatrice Webb, Baroness Passfield, FBA (née Potter; 22 January 1858 – 30 April 1943), was an English sociologist, economist, socialist, labour historian and social reformer. It was Webb who coined the term "collective bargaining". She was among the founders of the London School of Economics and played a crucial role in forming the Fabian Society.
Beatrice Potter was born in Standish House in the village of Standish, Gloucestershire, the last but one of the nine daughters of businessman Richard Potter and Laurencina Heyworth, a Liverpool merchant's daughter. Her paternal grandfather was Liberal Party MP Richard Potter, co-founder of the Little Circle which was key in creating the Reform Act 1832.
From an early age Beatrice was self-taught and cited as important influences the cooperative movement and the philosopher Herbert Spencer. After her mother's death in 1882 she acted as a hostess and companion for her father. In 1882, she began a relationship with twice-widowed Radical politician Joseph Chamberlain, by then a Cabinet minister in Gladstone's second government. He would not accept her need for independence as a woman and after four years of "storm and stress" their relationship failed. Marriage in 1892 to Sidney Webb established a lifelong "partnership" of shared causes. At the beginning of 1901 Beatrice wrote that she and Sidney were "still on our honeymoon and every year makes our relationship more tender and complete".
Beatrice Webb left unfinished a planned autobiography, under the general title My Creed and My Craft. At her death, aged 85, the only autobiographical work she had published was My Apprenticeship (1926). The posthumously issued Our Partnership (1948) covered the first two decades of her marriage to Sidney Webb between 1892 and 1911 and their collaboration on a variety of public issues.
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