Sidney Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, English economist and politician, Secretary of State for the Colonies (d. 1947)
Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, (13 July 1859 – 13 October 1947) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, who co-founded the London School of Economics. He was an early member of the Fabian Society in 1884, joining, like George Bernard Shaw, three months after its inception. Along with his wife Beatrice Webb and with Annie Besant, Graham Wallas, Edward R. Pease, Hubert Bland and Sydney Olivier, Shaw and Webb turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent politico-intellectual society in Edwardian England. He wrote the original, pro-nationalisation Clause IV for the British Labour Party.