Papers of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, including Beatrice Webb's diaries and correspondence

Papers of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, 1835-[1985], comprising the following:

Diaries of Beatrice Webb, 1873-1943, including the original manuscript volumes and various typed transcripts, comprising a detailed account of her life and work, notably relating to the history of socialism in Great Britain. The volumes include entries concerning Charles Booth, the Fabian Society, the Labour Party, trade unionism, the suffrage movement, the LSE, local government, and communism, as well as descriptions of friends, colleagues and acquaintances. The diaries also include entries by Sidney Webb, mainly during their 'world tours' in 1898 and 1911 and a visit to the USSR in 1932.

Correspondence, 1853-1947, including correspondence of the Potter family before Beatrice's marriage, 1862-1892, including

• letters of her parents, Richard and Lawrencina Potter, and her sisters, as well as correspondence between Beatrice and Herbert Spencer, Joseph Chamberlain, Charles and Mary Booth, Professor Alfred Marshall, and Auberon (Edward William Molyneux) Herbert
• Early correspondence of Sidney Webb, 1885-1892, notably with Graham Wallas and George Bernard Shaw
• Letters between Beatrice and Sidney Webb, 1890-1940, including material relating to their courtship, marriage, work and life together; general correspondence of the Webbs following their marriage, 1892-1947, with a wide range of correspondents including politicians, Fabians, historians, social scientists, and staff of the London School of Economics and Political Science
• additional letters and photocopies of letters given to the Library after the deposit of the Passfield papers in 1949, 1888-1944, including correspondence with Edward Reynolds Pease, Charlotte Payne-Townshend (later Shaw), Professor William Alexander Robson, Mrs Lucia Turin, Herbert George Wells, Richard Burdon Haldane, Viscount Haldane, and Hubert Hall

Later correspondence relating to the Webbs, [1970-1985], collated by Norman MacKenzie.

Material concerning personal and private affairs, 1865-1948, including financial and legal papers of the Webbs and their families, 1873-1945, such as wills, probates, birth and marriage certificates and insurance policies

Material relating to educational awards of Sidney and Beatrice, 1876-1945, as well as papers concerning his Barony

Correspondence, legal and business papers concerning property, 1893-1948, including

• Passfield Corner; financial material, 1902-1947, notably banking correspondence and dividend vouchers
• Photographs, 1865-1947, mainly of the Potter family and Beatrice and Sidney Webb, and including several of George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte.

Material relating to political and public work, 1892-1948, including

• material relating to the London County Council, 1892-1907

Papers concerning the Poor Law, 1909-1948, including the foundation of the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution, and papers of the National Poor Law Reform Association

Memoranda by Beatrice Webb on the administration of the Prince of Wales's Fund, 1914

Documents from the International Socialist Congress of Vienna, 1914

Material concerning Beatrice Webb's work on the Reconstruction Committee, 1917-1918, including letters from William Henry Beveridge, David Lloyd George and Christopher Addison, and committee papers

Memoranda on war aims for the Inter-Allied Labour and Socialist Conference, 1918

Political papers regarding Sidney Webb's candidature for the University of London in the general election of 1918, and his role as Labour MP for Seaham Harbour, 1920-1931

Prospectus and notices of the Half-Circle Club, 1921; notes by Sidney Webb on the Labour Governpment of 1924

Material concerning the living wage policy of the Independent Labour Party, 1926

Political papers of Sidney Webb, 1929-1931, mainly concerning his role as Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Labour Government of 1929, and including a report on the legislative programme of the Parliamentary Labour Party, correspondence with Sir Edward William Macleay Grigg, Governor of Kenya, and notes on the political crises of 1931 and Webb's resignation

Notes and drafts of an article by Beatrice Webb on the 1929 Labour Gpovernment, 1929-1931

Memoranda by Beatrice Webb on Emploympent Insurance, 1931.

Business papers concerning publications, 1890-1947, notably general correspondence between the Webbs and their actual and prospective publishers, 1890-1947

Printed prospectuses, advertisements, book jackets, 1898-1941, for Industrial democracy , A constitution for the socialist commonwealth of Great Britain , The History of Trade Unionism , various volumes of English local government , The decay of capitalist civilisation , Methods of social study , and Soviet communism ; manuscript notebooks, 1920-1947, mainly in Sidney Webb's hand, containing details of subscribers to English local government , and accounts connected with Webb p publications.

Printed, typescript and manuscript copies of lectures, interviews, speeches and talks by the Webbs, [1870]-1942, notably texts of lectures given by Sidney Webb at venues including the Working Men's College, the Argosy Society, the Sunday Lecture Society, the Fabian Society, the City of London College, and South Place Institute, 1883-1891, mainly relating to political economy and economic history

Printed reports of interviews with Sidney and Beatrice Webb, and speeches and lectures by them, 1889-1942, on subjects including political economy, socialism, the London County Council, education, the USSR and trade unions

Reprints and texts of lectures and talks by Beatrice Webb, 1906-1932, and Sidney Webb, 1900-1936, on the poor law, Herbert Spencer, social research, politics, and soviet copmmunism

An album of press cuttings relating to Sidney Webb, 1887-1891.

Articles, essays, published letters and reviews by the Webbs, 1877-1945, notably manuscript and typpescript essays, 1877-1887, on marxism, economic theory, and social research

Typescript copies of articlesp, 1912-1933, mainly relating to the Labour Party, politics and Spoviet Russia

Printed copies of articles by Beatrice and Sidney Webb, 1887-1942

Published letters, 1897-1910, on trade unions, and destitution

Notes and diary entries made by the Webbs during and after a visit to the Soviet Union, 1932

Drafts and proofs of books by thep Webbs, 1913-[1940].

Bibliographical material and research notes gathered by Beatrice and Sidney Webb during the production of some of their books, 1881-1948, including printed material, scrap books, biographical notes and index cards on subjects such as political economy, social conditions and local government in London, poor law, socialism, trade unionism, and the co-operative movement.

Material relating to the Webbs' involvement with the Fabian Society, 1886-1947, including 

• general material and lectures, 1888-1947
• papers of the Fabian Research Department and the Labour Research Department, 1912-1929;
• papers of the New Fabian Research Bureau, 1936-1938;
• material regarding the Fabian Summer School, 1913-1926;
• papers concerning the Fabian Women's Group, 1914-1915;
• and material relating to the Fabian Colonial Bureau, 1946.

Papers relating to the London School of Economics and Political Science, 1893-1924, comprising 

• early material concerning the Hutchinson Bequest and Trust, 1893-1924, namely legal documents, correspondence and financial papers;
• correspondence, legal documents, accounts and maps regarding the foundation, early history and administration of LSE, 1895-1945, including letters from Sir William Henry Beveridge, Sir Alexander Carr-Saunders, William Albert Samuel Hewins and others;
• correspondence regarding library acquisitions, 1934-1935;
• material concerning LSE buildings, 1898-1903, including correspondence with architects and builders, accounts, maps and plans.

Material concerning the New Statesman and the Statesman Publishing Company, 1912-1943, comprising 

• papers relating to the foundation, financing and planned format of the journal, 1912-1913;
• correspondence with William Pember Reeves, Professor Charles Mostyn Lloyd, (Basil) Kingsley Martin, George Bernard Shaw, Edward Whitley and Ernest Darwin Simon, 1912-1943;
• financial material, 1913-1943, including banking correspondence, share statements, loan certificates, and circulation figures;
• material concerning the takeover of the Nation by the New Statesman , 1923;
• correspondence with Clifford Dyce Sharp relating to his resignation as Editor, 1924;
• transcripts of Beatrice Webb's diary relating to the journal, 1912-1928.

Material published about Beatrice and Sidney Webb and the Potter family, 1869-1960, including

• press cuttings and short published reviews of published works by the Webbs, 1889-1960;
• photographs and notes relating to the Potter family, 1869-1947, including Richard Potter, Lady Kate Courtney, Sir Richard Durning Holt and Sir (Richard) Stafford Cripps.

Papers of the Beatrice Webb relating to the government Reconstruction Committee, 1916-1918, mainly comprising 

• memoranda, reports and letters concerning the work of the Machinery of Government Committee, with proposals concerning the reorganisation of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Trade, the Department of Justice, the Board of Education, the Home Office and the civil service, as well as methods of controlling national expenditure;
• memoranda and reports of the Sub-Committee on Functions of Government Departments;
• and material created by the Control of Industry and Commerce Panel.

Miscellaneous material, 1835-[1950], including

• items found loose in Beatrice Webb's diary, including the passport of Richard Potter, reports on trade unionism, conscientious objectors, wage regulation in World War One;
• a letter from Sir Oswald Ernald Mosely to Sidney Webb, enclosing a paper on unemployment and reconstruction, [1930];
• cabinet papers on national expenditure and national insurance and pensions, [1930-1931];
• material concerning agriculture in the Soviet Union; photographs, [1850]-1932, comprising a photograph album of Sidney Webb's parents, and pictures removed from Beatrice Webb's diary.

Beatrice and Sidney Webb were pioneering social economists, early members of the Fabian Society andco-founders of the London School of Economic and Political Science, and had a profound effect onEnglish social thought and institutions.

Beatrice Potter Webb was born in 1858, the eighth daughter of Richard Potter, a wealthy businessman, and Lawrencina Heyworth. Surrounded from an early age by her parents' intellectual and worldly friends and visitors, notably the philosopher Herbert Spencer, she was largely self-educated through copious reading, and frequently a partner for her father during business trips abroad.

Following a tempestuous relationship with Joseph Chamberlain, which began in 1883 and lasted several years, Beatrice took up social work in London, acting as a rent collector for the Charity Organisation Society, and becoming steadily disillusioned by the inability of charitable organisations to tackle the basic causes of poverty. During 1886, she participated in research for Charles Booth's investigations into London labour conditions, eventually contributing to Volume I of Life and Labour of the People of London (1889). During this period she continued to write articles on social subjects, most of which were printed in The nineteenth century , and published The co-operative movement in Great Britain (1891).

She met Sidney Webb in 1890 during research into economic conditions and labour unions. Sidney Webb was born in London in 1859. Educated in the local academy, he left school at sixteen to work as a clerk in a colonial brokers. By attending evening classes, he passed the civil service exams in 1881 and was appointed a clerk in the Inland Revenue. The following year, he took the Civil Service upper division examination and was appointed to the Colonial Office in 1883. He also began lecturing on political economy at the Working Men's College. Webb was a close friend of George Bernard Shaw, who induced him to join the socialist Fabian Society in 1885, where both men became leading members: Webb was responsible for putting forward the first concise expression of Fabian convictions in Facts for Socialists (Fabian Tract 5, 1887). As a member of the Fabian executive, Webb continued to write and lecture extensively on economic and social issues, and took a leading role in Fabian policy-making.

For the year following their first meeting in 1890, Sidney Webb pressed Beatrice to marry him, and she finally agreed in May 1891. They were married in 1892, after the death of Richard Potter, and set up home in London. Sidney left his post in the Civil Service, and the couple lived on Beatrice's inheritance and income derived from books and journalism, in order to dedicate time to social research and political work, though Sidney retained his position on the London County Council (elected for Deptford in 1892, Chairman of the Technical Education Board) and both kept up their association with the Fabian Society, which Beatrice had joined in 1891. They formed a close personal and working relationship.

The Webbs pooled their respective talents into writing joint works on economic and social issues. This partnership produced books such as The history of Trade Unionism, 1666-1920 (1894), Industrial democracy (1897), Problems of Modern Industry (1898), and their great nine-volume English Local Government from the Reformation to the Municipal Corporations Act (Longmans and Co, 1906-1929), which was produced over 25 years. Their work spread into areas such as historical and social research, educational and political reform and journalism, and much of what they produced altered the perceptions of economists and social historians, who had previously ignored the working classes.

Sidney Webb's work on the London County Council (1892-1910) was equally impressive, as he was a prime mover in the reorganisation of the University of London into a federation of teaching institutions, and was closely involved in the drafting of the Conservative Educational Acts of 1902 and 1903.

It was also in this period that the Webbs played a vital part in the founding of the London School of Economics. The LSE owed its existence to the will of Henry Hunt Hutchinson, a provincial member of the Fabian Society, who had left a significant sum of money in trust for 'propaganda and other purposes of the said [Fabian] Society and its Socialism and towards advancing its objects in any way they [the trustees] deem advisable'. The Chairman of the five trustees named in the will was Sidney Webb, who believed the money should be used to encourage research and study of economics. His proposal to establish a Central School of Economic and Political Science in London was accepted by the Trustees in February 1895. Sidney Webb was the driving and organising force in the establishment and early years of the School, providing funding through his connection with the LCC, acting as Chairman of the Hutchinson Trust, the School Trustees and Governors, the Administrative Committee and the Library Committee, as well as being Treasurer and Acting Librarian, and making most of the decisions concerning the choice of Director of the LSE. He was also appointed as Lecturer in Public Administration at LSE, 1895-1912, and Professor of Public Administration in the University of London, 1912-1927. Beatrice undertook the unpaid job of Honorary Visitor from 1895.

Beatrice Webb was appointed as a member of the Royal Commission on the Poor Law from 1905 to 1909, and, failing to turn the Commission to her way of thinking, produced a comprehensive policy on pauperism in the form of a minority report, which advocated universal social insurance and outlined a fledgling welfare state. This report was published in 1909 and the Webbs launched a national campaign for the break up of the Poor Law, publishing The prevention of destitution in 1911.

In 1912, Beatrice joined the Independent Labour Party (ILP), and was elected to the Fabian executive, where she set up the Fabian Research Department and promoted joint campaigns of the Fabians and the ILP.

In 1917, Beatrice was appointed to the government Reconstruction Committee, to consider post-war social problems, and sat on the Committee on Women in Industry, producing a minority report in favour of equal pay.

In 1913, the Webbs planned and launched the New Statesman , a political and weekly magazine, funded by themselves and subscribers from the Fabian Society. Thejournal quickly became a politically independent socialist forum for serious intellectual discussion, political commentary, and criticism, and was soon influential, especially within parliamentary circles. Sidney Webb acted as Director of the Statesman Publishing Company until 1922, and resigned from the Board altogether in 1924.

By 1914, both Webbs were involved with the Labour Party: Sidney became a member of the executive in 1916, and drafted Labour's first policy statement, Labour and the new social order (1918), and stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for London University. He was also nominated by the Miner's Federation to serve on the Sankey Commission on the Coal Mines (1919), which led to his nomination and election as parliamentary candidate for Seaham Harbour, County Durham, in 1922. Sidney Webb held office in both Labour governments, as President of the Board of Trade in 1924 and as Colonial Secretary in 1929, when he was created Lord Passfield. Beatrice published My apprenticeship in 1926.

After a visit to the USSR in 1932, where they were impressed with the Communist system, the Webbs devoted three years to the writing of Soviet Communism: a new civilisation (Longmans and Co, London, 1935). By this time they had retired to Passfield Corner in Hampshire: though Beatrice continued to write, Sidney was incapacitated by a stroke in 1938. Beatrice Webb died in 1943, Sidney Webb in 1947. Both are buried in Westminster Abbey.

The collection is arranged in sections as outlined in the Scope and Content.

Open, though some later material remains closed. Apply to Archivist for details. The manuscript diaries of Beatrice Webb have been withdrawn from public access for conservation purposes, though transcripts and microfilms are available.

Printed handlist and on-line catalogue available. Detailed listing of the diaries may be found in the Index to the diary of Beatrice Webb, 1873-1943 (Archive Arrangement Routledge Associates, 1978). The on-line catalogue contains an index to the correspondence.

There is a microfiche of Passfield Section 1, the original and transcripts of 'The Diary of Beatrice Webb 1873-1943", (Chadwyck-Healey, Cambridge, 1978), with the reference Fiche B40-41, with an Index to the Diary of Beatrice Webb, 1873-1943, compiled by Archive Arrangement Routledge Associates, with introductions by Margaret Cole, Geoffrey Allen and Norman Mackenzie, and a chronology of the lives of the Webbs. Passfield Sections 2, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11 have been microfilmed and positive copies are available in the library as FILM 212. Passfield Section 13 (Reconstruction papers) was microfilmed for the Follett Preservation Microfilming Project, 2000. Films are on open access in the library as Archives MF 575-576.

Sources: British Library of Political and Economic Science Archives catalogue; Who's Who 1897-1996 (A & C Black, 1996); British Library On-Line Public Access Catalogue 97; Historical Manuscripts Commission National Register of Archives. Compiled by Sarah Aitchison as part of the RSLP AIM25 project.

Copyright is held by the LSE. No copies may be made of the manuscript diaries of Beatrice Webb.

The Passfield papers were placed on permanent deposit in the British Library of Political and Economic Science by the Passfield Trust in 1949, although the papers had been placed in the Library for safekeeping in 1948. The manuscript copy of Beatrice Webb's diary was deposited in the Westminster Bank between 1948 and 1955, when it too was deposited in the Library. The Passfield papers were left in the permanent care of the LSE following the winding up of the Trust in 1967. Several public appeals for material relating to the Webbs resulted in the deposit of numerous letters and other material between 1950 and 1987. Additional material was bought by the Library in 1956, 1958, 1960, 1965, 1974, and 1978. The Library also collected photocopies of Webb letters held by other institutions. All original letters collected by Norman MacKenzie during his work on The letters of Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Cambridge University Press, 1978), were given to the Library in 1978.

The British Library of Political and Economic Science holds further papers relating to the work of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, namely papers relating to local government collected for a proposed book on English local government (Ref: Webb Local Government); papers collated for books on trade unionism and industrial democracy (Ref: Webb Trade Union); records of the inhabitants of Katherine's Buildings, Aldgate, by Beatrice Webb and Ella Pycroft (Ref: Coll Misc 0043); papers of Sidney Webb as Colonial Secretary, relating to East Africa (Ref: Coll Misc 0156); a journal of the Pro and Con Society (Ref: Coll Misc 0059); a resolution on the London Education Bill, by Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0161); a memorandum on a draft constitution of the World Order of Socialists, sent to the Webbs by Keighly Snowden (Ref: Coll Misc 0164); a precis of a lecture by Sidney Webb on 'Eugenics and the poor law' (Ref: Coll Misc 0181); London County Council papers relating to the taxation of ground rents, collated by Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0190); bylaws of various towns, collected by the Webbs (Ref: Coll Misc 0192-95); a preliminary memo on Provident dispensaries (Ref: Coll Misc 0218); letters from Sir Theodore Morrison to Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0239); working papers for a report on industrial insurance for the Fabian Society (Ref: Coll Misc 0240); Board of Trade papers of Beatrice Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0241); papers relating to wartime measures for the relief of distress (Ref: Coll Misc 0242); lectures on the civil service, by Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0243); a draft administrative history of weights and measures (Ref: Coll Misc 0244); LSE lectures by Sidney Webb on the 'Making of the British Empire' (Ref: Coll Misc 0245); research materials and drafts for a survey of professional workers (Ref: Coll Misc 0248); a draft manuscript on 'standard conditions of employment' by Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0282); papers relating to the administration of the Poor Law (Ref: Coll Misc 0865); letters from Sidney Webb to Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell (Ref: Coll Misc 0989); papers of the Sub-Committee on National Registration (Ref: Coll Misc 0238); papers of Beatrice Webb concerning the Reconstruction Committee (Ref: Coll Misc 0849); correspondence between Beatrice Webb and Dr McLeary regarding the poor law (Ref: Coll Misc 0979); Co-operative Society rule books collated by Beatrice Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0359); papers of the Poor Law Guardians elections (Ref: Coll Misc 0850); an article by Edward Reynolds Pease on Sidney Webb (Ref: Coll Misc 0280); papers relating to research work on the manpower survey (Ref: Coll Misc 0516); an album of photographs of co-operative shops in Leningrad (Ref: SR 1100); photographs of the Webbs collated by Norman MacKenzie (Ref: Coll Misc 0874); and working papers for an edition of Webb letters (Ref: Webb/MacKenzie). Other collections including Webb material include the papers of Percival Chubb (Ref: Chubb 2/3/5), William Henry Beveridge (Ref: Beveridge), Leonard Henry Courtney (Ref: Courtney), Graham Wallas (Ref: Wallas), the Fabian Society (Ref: Fabian Society), the Independent Labour Party (Ref: ILP), the London School of Economics and Political Science (Ref: LSE Archives/Central Filing Registry 130-131), the League of Nations Union (Ref: LNU 5/44), Beatrice Murray (Ref: Coll Misc 0859), the National Committee for the Prevention of Destitution (Ref: Coll Misc 0862), the Board of Studies in Economic and Political Science (Ref: Coll Misc 0523), Professor William Alexander Robson (Ref: Coll Misc 0708), William Dyson (Ref: Coll Misc 0965), the Co-efficients Dining Club (Ref: Assoc 17), Walter McLennon Citrine (Ref: Citrine), Bronislaw Kasper Malinowski (Ref: Malinowski), (Edward) Hugh (John Neale) Dalton (Ref: Dalton), Evan Frank Mottram Durbin (Ref: Durbin), Alfred George Gardiner (Ref: Gardiner 1/39), Frederic Harrison (Ref: Harrison 1/113), Charles Mostyn Lloyd (Ref: Lloyd 7/16), Violet Rosa Markham (Ref: Markham 25/87, 94), Hon William Pember Reeves (Ref: Coll Misc 0198) and Professor Reginald Basset (Ref: Basset 10/5). The Labour History Archives and Study Centre, Manchester University, holds papers in the archives of the Labour Party (Ref: LP/AFF/9/566, LP/CL/22/5, and LP/LIQ/22), and correspondence of Beatrice Webb with the War Emergency Workers National Committee, 1914-1917 (Ref: WNC); the Bodleian Library, Oxford University, holds correspondence of Sidney Webb with Christopher Addison, 1st Viscount Addison and some notes relating to the Home Marketing Board, [1914-1929] (Ref: MSS Addison dep c96, 166), letters to James Bryce, Viscount Bryce, 1891-1918, and correspondence between Beatrice Webb and Herbert Henry Asquith, 1st Earl of Oxford and Asquith, 1895-1909 (Ref: MSS Asquith); Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge University, has correspondence between Sidney Webb and Albert Victor Alexander, Earl Alexander of Hillsborough, 1924-1939; Sussex University contains letters from Sidney Webb to W W Bartlett, 1888-1895 (Ref: Sx Ms 20) and from the Webbs to Leonard Sidney Woolf, 1915-1943 (Ref: Sx Ms 13/Pt I/L/10; Pt III); King's College Archives Centre, Cambridge University, holds letters from Sidney Webb to Oscar Browning, 1888-1908 (Ref: OB) and letters from Beatrice Webb to John Maynard Keynes, 1st Baron Keynes, 1915-1938 (Ref: JMK); the British Library, London, has letters from the Webbs to John Elliot Burns, 1889-1908 (Ref: Add MS 46287), the Society of Authors, 1909-1917 (Ref: Add MS 56842), and George Bernard Shaw (Ref: Add MS 50553); the Madison Library, University of Wisconsin, USA, contains letters from Sidney Webb to Richard Theodore Ely, [1880-1895]; the Centre for Kentish Studies, Maidstone, holds letters from Sidney Webb to Hubert Hall, 1903-1932 (Ref: F/4); Sheffield University Library has letters from the Webbs to William Albert Samuel Hewins, 1895-1903 (Ref: Hewins mss); the National Library of Wales, Aberystwyth, contains correspondence between the Webbs and Thomas Jones, 1909-1944 (Ref: Thomas Jones); the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, holds letters from the Webbs to Harold Laski, 1920-1946, and correspondence between Beatrice Webb and Dora Winifred Russell; the Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University, New York, has letters from Sidney Webb to the Political Science Quarterly, 1888-1902, Edwin Robert Anderson Seligman, 1890-1929, and Paul Reynolds, 1913-1946; Rhodes House Library, University of Oxford, contains correspondence between Sidney Webb and Frederick Dealtry Lugard, 1st Baron Lugard of Abinger (Ref: Mss Lugard), and correspondence and despatches as Colonial Secretary (Ref: Mss Brit emp s 286); the Public Record Office, London, holds correspondence between Sidney Webb and James Ramsay MacDonald, 1924 (Ref: PRO30/69/1/210); the House of Lords Record Office has correspondence between the Webbs and Herbert Louis Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel , 1888-1944 (Ref: Samuel papers, A/15, 119, 155/1, 2, 5, 7); the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, contains letters from Beatrice Webb to Richard Burdon Haldane, Viscount Haldane, 1915-1931 (Ref: Mss 5912-6103); the Plunkett Foundation for Cooperative Studies, Oxfordshire, holds correspondence between Beatrice Webb and Sir Horace Curzon Plunkett, 1913-1929 (Ref: Webb); MacMaster University Library, Ontario, Canada, holds correspondence between Beatrice Webb and Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, 1902-1943 (Ref: Russell Archives); Manchester Archives and Local Studies has letters from Sidney Webb to Lord Simon, 1909-1940.

Niraja Gopal Jayal (ed) Indian diary: Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Oxford University Press, 1987); Jeanne and Norman Mackenzie (ed) The diaries of Beatrice Webb (Virago, London, 1982-5); Index to the diary of Beatrice Webb, 1873-1943 (Archive Arrangement Routledge Associates, 1978); Norman Mackenzie (ed) The letters of Sidney and Beatrice We bb (Cambridge University Press, 1978); Barbara Caine Destined to be wives: the sisters of Beatrice Webb (Oxford University Press, 1986); Brian Lee Crowley The self, the individual and the community: liberalism in the political thought of F A Hayek and Sidney and Beatrice Webb (Clarendon, Oxford, 1987); Jeanne MacKenzie A Victorian courtship: the story of Beatrice Potter and Sidney Webb (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1979); Lisanne Radice Beatrice and Sidney Webb: Fabian Socialists (Macmillan, London, 1984); Deborah Epstein Nord The apprenticeship of Beatrice Webb (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 1985); George Feaver (ed) The Webbs in Asia: the 1911-1912 travel diary (Macmillan, London, 1992); Barbara Nolan The political theory of Beatrice Webb (AMS, 1988); Carole Seymour-Jones Beatrice Webb: woman of conflict (Allison & Busby, London, 1992); Jose Harris Beatrice Webb: the ambivalent feminist (LSE, London, 1984); D A Hamer (ed) The Webbs in New Zealand, 1898 (Price Milburn for Victoria University Press, Wellington, 1974); Mary Ann Romano Beatrice Webb: the socialist with a sociological imagination (Edwin Mellen Press, Lampeter, 1998); Kitty Miggeridge and Ruth Adam Beatrice Webb: a life (Secker & Warburg, London, 1967); M G Tyldesley The political and social thought of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, 1884-1914 (University of Manchester, 1985); A J Kidd Poverty and the historians: a study of historiography and opinion, with particular reference to Thomas Mackay and Sidney and Beatrice Webb (University of Manchester, 1989); Royden Harrison The life and times of Sidney and Beatrice Webb, 1858-1905; the formative years (Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2000).