The Break-Up of the Poor Law; Being Parts 1-2 of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, with Introduction

by Sidney Webb, Beatrice Potter Webb

This early work by Beatrice Potter Webb was originally published in 1909 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'The Break-Up of the Poor Law' is a fascinating work on social history and its impact on the working classes. Beatrice Potter Webb was born in Gloucester, England in 1858. Both her mother and brother died early in her childhood leaving her to be raised by her father, Richard Potter. He was a successful businessman with large railroad interests and many influential friends in politics and industry whose company the young Beatrice would become accustomed to. Upon reaching adulthood, Potter moved to London and helped her cousin, Charles, a social reformer, research his book The Life and Labour of the People in London. It was during this time that she was introduced to Sidney James Webb, who later became her husband and collaborator. The Webb's, together, wrote eleven volumes of work which arguably shaped the way subsequent scholars thought about sociology. They also collaborated on more than 100 books and articles on the conditions of factory workers, and the economic history of Britain, among other subjects.

648 pages, Paperback

First published November 12, 2009

About the author

Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield was a British socialist, economist, reformer and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. He was one of the early members of the Fabian Society in 1884. He wrote the original Clause IV for the British Labour Party.
He served as both Secretary of State for the Colonies and Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs in Ramsay MacDonald second Labour Government in 1929.
The Webbs were supporters of the Soviet Union until their deaths. Their books, Soviet Communism: A New Civilisation? (1935) and The Truth About Soviet Russia (1942) give a very positive assessment of Joseph Stalin's regime. Marxist historian Al Richardson later described Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? as "pure Soviet propaganda at its most mendacious".