Beatrice and Sydney Webb
They were once called “the most fruitful partnership in the history of the British intellect.” Beatrice Webb said about their relationship that “together, we could move the world. Marriage is a partnership. It is the ultimate committee.”
But Beatrice didn’t fall in love with Sydney Webb at first sight. She wasn’t keen to marry a man for whom she found little physical and social attraction to. Still though she was intrigued as she saw in him “a fine intellect and a warm-heartedness, a power of self-subordination and self-devotion for the ‘common good’.”
It didn’t help that her friends and family did not approve of Sidney. “He is not enough of a man. You would grow out of him,” she was told.
He though was in love with her. And he pursued her for more than a year until they were unofficially engaged. Signified when for the first time Beatrice put her arm round him in a cab.
Sydney and Beatrice Webb would spend more than 50 years of life together. They achieved much in those years, including starting the London School of Economics.
