New biography of Beatrice and Sidney Webb
Michael Ward is working, with the support of the Webb Memorial Trust, on a
biographical study of Beatrice and Sidney Webb, leading social reformers and
socialists of the twentieth century. He has been appointed to a two year Visiting
Research Fellowship at the Centre for History in Public Health at the London School
of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine while undertaking this research.
Sidney and Beatrice Webb played a critical role in ensuring that the issues of poverty
and inequality became central to British political debate and action in the twentieth
century. The project will examine the overall contribution of Beatrice and Sidney
Webb to social policy. The Webbs’ interests ranged from housing policy,
cooperation, and industrial relations to policy for the elderly, education, the standard
of living, public health and above all poverty.
The Webb Memorial Trust was set up in 1944 as a memorial to Beatrice Webb. The
Trust pursues the intellectual legacy of Beatrice Webb, who, together with her
husband Sidney, embarked on a vigorous programme of social reform. Since 1987
the Trust has funded a range of projects in the UK, helping to create a better
informed debate about poverty, its causes and solutions.
The Centre for History in Public Health (CHiPH) was established in 2003, with its
origins in the AIDS Social History Programme at LSHTM in the late 1980s. Its
location within a multidisciplinary public health institution is unique and keeps it firmly
in the forefront of historical research into public health and health services.
Michael Ward is a researcher in economic and social policy. He is a Research
Fellow with the Smith Institute, and an Associate with the Centre for London, and
has had a long career in local government and economic development. He has a first
degree in Philosophy Politics and Economics from University College Oxford, and a
Master’s degree in Economic and Social History from Birkbeck University of London.
In 2011 the Smith Institute, in association with the Webb Memorial Trust, published
Michael’s short study “Beatrice Webb – her quest for a fairer society: a hundred
years of the Minority Report.”