Editing Beatrice Webb (section)

==Extended family==
[[File:Beatrice and Sidney Webb. c1923 (6880616496).jpg|thumb|Beatrice and Sidney Webb at [[Passfield]], {{circa|1923}}]]
In 1929 Webb's husband, [[Sidney Webb]], became [[Baron Passfield]] and a member of the House of Lords. Between 1929 and 1931 he served as [[Secretary of State for the Colonies]] and [[Secretary of State for the Dominions]] in Ramsay MacDonald's Labour government. Beatrice did not refer to herself as Lady Passfield or expect others to do so.

Sidney and Beatrice Webb never had any children. In retirement, Beatrice would reflect on the success of their other progeny.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://digital.library.lse.ac.uk/Documents/Detail/webbs-typescript-diary.-vol-49-51.-1-jan-1935-27-dec-1937/115018?item=115741|title=Beatrice Webb's typescript diary, 1 January 1935-27 December 1937|website=digital.library.lse.ac.uk}}</ref> For instance, in 1895 they had founded the [[London School of Economics]] with [[Graham Wallas]] and George Bernard Shaw:

<blockquote>In old age it is one of the minor satisfactions of life to watch the success of your children, literal children or symbolic. The London School of Economics is undoubtedly our most famous one, but the ''[[New Statesman]]'' is also creditable—it is the most successful of the general weeklies, actually making a profit on its 25,000 readers, and has absorbed two of its rivals, ''The Nation'' and the ''Week-End Review''.</blockquote>

Meanwhile, the connections by marriage of their numerous nieces and nephews made Beatrice and Sidney part of the emerging new Labour establishment. Beatrice's nephew [[Sir Stafford Cripps]], son of her sister Theresa, became a well-known Labour politician in the 1930s and 1940s. He served as British ambassador to Moscow during the Second World War and later as [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] under [[Clement Attlee]].  Margaret, yet another Potter sister, married the Liberal politician [[Henry Hobhouse (East Somerset MP)|Henry Hobhouse]], making Beatrice Webb an aunt of peace activist [[Stephen Henry Hobhouse]] and of Liberal politician [[Arthur Hobhouse]].<ref>Hochschild, Adam, ''To end all wars: a story of loyalty and rebellion, 1914–1918'', Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011, p. 277, {{ISBN|0618758283}}.</ref> Another sister, Blanche, married surgeon [[William Harrison Cripps]], brother to Theresa's husband [[Charles Cripps, 1st Baron Parmoor]].

A dissonant voice entered the family after [[Kitty Muggeridge|Katherine Dobbs]], the daughter of Beatrice's youngest sister Rosalind, married the journalist [[Malcolm Muggeridge]]. In the early 1930s, the young couple moved to Moscow, full of enthusiasm for the new Soviet system. Muggeridge's experience of reporting from the Soviet Union for the ''[[Manchester Guardian]]'', however, made him highly critical of the Webbs' optimistic views of the Soviet Union.<ref>See Malcolm Muggeridge, ''Chronicles of Wasted Time: Pt 1, The Green Stick'', London: Fontana (pbk), 1981. Chapter 5, 'Who Whom?', pp. 285–299. Also his ''Winter in Moscow'' (1934).</ref> On 29 March 1933 Beatrice referred in her diary to "Malcolm's curiously hysterical denunciation of the USSR and all its works in a letter to me...."<ref>''The Diaries of Beatrice Web'' (abridged, 2000), p. 514.</ref> The following day she noted that [[The Manchester Guardian|''The Manchester'' ''Guardian'']] had printed "another account of the famine in Russia, which certainly bears out Malcolm's reports."<ref>''The Diaries of Beatrice Webb'' (abridged, 2000), p. 514.</ref>

Yet, wrote Muggeridge, Beatrice "went on wanting to see Kitty and me." On their last visit, Beatrice showed her niece's husband a portrait of Lenin: "She had set the picture up as though it were a Velazquez, with special lighting coming from below."<ref>Malcolm Muggeridge, ''Chronicles of Wasted Time: Pt 1, The Green Stick'', London: Fontana (pbk), 1981. Chapter 4, 'The Pursuit of Righteousness', p. 165.</ref>