Sidney James Webb, 1st Baron Passfield, was born on July 13, 1859, in London, England.

He was a British social reformer, economist, and historian. He studied law at the Birkbeck Literary and Scientific Institution and King's College London. He was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn, and, in 1886, he obtained his LL.B. from London University. In 1885, G.B. Shaw introduced Webb to the Fabian Society, and he wrote for it on poverty in London, the eight-hour day, land nationalization, the nature of socialism, education, eugenics, and reform of the House of Lords, e.g., "Facts for Socialists" (1887) and "Facts for Londoners" (1889). They turned the Fabian Society into the pre-eminent politico-intellectual society in Edwardian England. In 1913, together with his wife, Webb founded the New Statesman magazine. In 1895, he helped found the London School of Economics and served as its Professor of Public Administration from 1912 to 1927. In 1929, he was created Baron Passfield of Passfield Corner in the County of Southampton. He served as Secretary of State for the Colonies (1929-1930) and as Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs (1930-1931). Webb was appointed to the Order of Merit in 1944 and received honorary degrees from the Universities of London, Wales, and Munich. He wrote the original, pro-nationalization Clause IV for the British Labour Party. Webb co-authored with his wife Beatrice “The History of Trade Unionism” (1894) and “Soviet Communism: a New Civilisation?” (2 vols., 1935).

In 1892, he married Martha Beatrice Potter (1858–1943). He died on October 13, 1947, in Liphook, Hampshire, England.

Phyllis Webb was born on April 8, 1927, in Victoria, British Columbia.

She was a Canadian poet and broadcaster. She attended the University of British Columbia (B.A., 1949) and McGill University. In 1957, she won a grant that allowed her to study theatre in France. Webb's poetry had diverse influences, ranging from neo-Confucianism to the field theory of composition developed by the Black Mountain poets. Critics have described her collections "Naked Poems" (1965) and “Wilson's Bowl” (1980) as important works in contemporary Canadian literature. "Peacock Blue: The Collected Poems of Phyllis Webb" (2014) was her final collection of poetry. As a broadcaster at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) in the 1960s, she created the programs Ideas and Extension, a television program about Canadian poetry. She left the CBC in 1967 to return to British Columbia, where she remained for much of her life. Webb won the 1982 Governor General's Literary Award for Poetry for "The Vision Tree" and Canada Council awards in 1981 and 1987. She became an officer of the Order of Canada in 1992. In 1999, she received the George Woodcock Lifetime Achievement Award for an Outstanding Literary Career in British Columbia.

She died on November 11, 2021, in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.