Beatrice Webb

1858 - 1943

Born into a wealthy family in 1858, Beatrice Potter was the eighth of nine daughters. Beatrice began her life with an estranged relationship with her mother that proved difficult yet motivating for her. Beatrice often spoke of a difficult conversation with her mom that she remembered vividly when she said, “Beatrice is the only one of my children who is below average in intelligence.” Despite her mother’s early judgments, Beatrice became one of the most influential women of her time. 

Beatrice wore many hats: social researcher, economist, writer, political hostess and networker, poverty campaigner, debutante, pioneer of the independent Labor Party, and in her older age, a polemicist and leader for the Soviet Union. Originally starting life as a member of a high-class society, in a life of comfort and wealth, she contradicted her past by turning on “her people” to become a social researcher and important leader in the labor movement. As a non-traditional feminist Webb didn’t always support the suffrage movement because she refused to be limited to working on just the position of women in the labor market.

In addition to being a pioneer woman in her social research, she was also an esteemed author. Publishing two volumes of an autobiography and four volumes of the diaries she kept throughout her life, she also co-authored several books with her husband, Sidney Webb. Sidney dreamed about founding a school with Beatrice. “His vision is to found, slowly and quietly, a ‘London School of Economics and Political Science’ - a center not only of lectures on special subjects but an association of students who would be directed and supported in doing original work,” said Beatrice.

Beatrice is well-known for her part in the production of the Minority and Majority Reports, both dealing with statistics on unemployment sparking public campaigns to help promote a network of labor exchanges on a national level. After gaining a following of nearly 30,000 members, Beatrice continued to grow the community by speaking at rallies all over the country.