Editing Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield (section)

==References in literature==
[[File:Beatrice and Sidney Webb, c1895 (9259293969).jpg|thumb|right|Beatrice and Sidney Webb working together in 1895]]
In [[H. G. Wells]]' ''[[The New Machiavelli]]'' (1911), the Webbs, as "the Baileys", are mercilessly lampooned as short-sighted, bourgeois manipulators. The Fabian Society, of which Wells was briefly a member (1903–1908), fares no better in his estimation.{{citation needed|date=December 2021}}

Beatrice Webb in her diary records that they "read the caricatures of ourselves... with much interest and amusement. The portraits are very clever in a malicious way."<ref>{{cite web |title=Webbs on the Web &#124; LSE Digital Library |url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/collections/list/collections/18}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Explore our collection {{!}} Beatrice Webb's typescript diary, 2 January 1901 – 10 February 1911 |url=http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/ |website=LSE Digital Library}}</ref> She reviews the book and Wells's character, summarising: "As an attempt at representing a political philosophy the book utterly fails..."<ref>{{cite web |title=Explore our collection {{!}} Beatrice Webb's typescript diary, 2 January 1901 – 10 February 1911 |url=http://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/ |website=LSE Digital Library}}</ref>