Edward
Pease,
the sixth of fifteen children, was born at Henbury Hill, near Bristol
on 23rd December, 1857. Edward was related to Edward
Pease the famous railway entrepreneur. His parents, Thomas Pease
and Susanna Fry, were both devout Quakers.
Edward was educated at home by a private tutor until he reached the
age of sixteen.
Pease moved to London in 1874 where he
found work as a clerk in his brother-in-law's textile firm. Later
he became a partner in a brokerage company. The business was very
successful, but Pease, who was gradually developing socialists ideas,
became increasingly uncomfortable about his speculative dealings on
the Stock Exchange.
In the early 1880s Pease became friends with Frank
Podmore, who invited him to join the Society
for Physical Research. The following year, the two men, joined a socialist
debating group established by Edith Nesbit
and Hubert Bland. In January, 1884, the
group became known as the Fabian Society.
Podmore's home, 14 Dean's Yard, Westminster, became the official headquarters
of the organisation.
In 1884, Thomas Pease died leaving Edward a
legacy of £3,000. This gave Pease the opportunity to give
up working on the Stock Exchange and to
devote his energies to the socialist cause. Pease also had a desire
the become a working man and in 1886 he moved to Newcastle
where he found work as a cabinet-maker in a co-operative furniture
company. Pease formed a branch of the National
Labour Federation and hoped to convert the working class in the area
to socialism. However, disillusioned by the workers lack of interest
in this new philosophy, Pease returned to London.
Pease travelled to America with Sidney Webb
in 1888. Pease considered settling in the country but realising that
workers were no more interested in socialism than those at home, returned
to England. Soon afterwards he married Marjory Davidson, a young Scottish
schoolteacher.
The success of Fabian
Essays in Socialism (1889) convinced the Fabian
Society that they needed a full-time employee. In 1890 Pease was
appointed as Secretary of the Society. His duties included keeping
the minutes at meetings, dealing with the correspondence, arranging
lecture schedules, managing the Fabian Information
Bureau, circulating book-boxes and editing and contributing
to the Fabian News.
Pease was the author of ten pamphlets published by the Fabian
Society. This included The History of
the Fabian Society (1916).
In 1894 Henry Hutchinson, a wealthy solicitor
from Derby, left the Fabian
Society £10,000. Hutchinson left instructions that the money
should be used for "propaganda and socialism". Hutchinson
selected Pease, Sidney Webb and Beatrice
Webb as trustees of the fund, and together they decided the money
should be used to develop a new university in London.
The London School of Economics (LSE) was founded
in 1895. As Sidney Webb pointed out, the
intention of the institution was to "teach political economy
on more modern and more socialist lines than those on which it had
been taught hitherto, and to serve at the same time as a school of
higher commercial education".
Edward Pease
was also a member of the Independent Labour Party
and had close links with people such as Keir
Hardie, Tom Mann, John
Glasier, and Ramsay Macdonald.
On 27th February 1900, Pease represented the Fabian
Society at the meeting of socialist and trade union groups at
the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street, London. After a debate the
129 delegates decided to pass Hardie's motion to establish "a
distinct Labour group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips,
and agree upon their policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate
with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting
legislation in the direct interests of labour." To make this
possible the Conference established a Labour
Representation Committee (LRC). This committee included two members
from the Independent Labour Party, two from
the Social Democratic Federation, one member
of the Fabian Society, and seven trade unionists.
Some members of the Fabian Society had doubts
about this and Pease personally paid the affiliation dues. Pease was
elected to the executive of the Labour Representation
Committee (named the Labour Party after
1906) and held the post for the next fourteen years.
With his wife Marjory, Edward Pease established the East Surrey Labour
Party and both of them served on the local council. Their home at
Limpsfield became known as Dostoevsky Corner, because he housed so
many Russian refugees who had been forced to leave their country because
of their socialist beliefs.
Pease was very close to Sidney Webb and
fully supported his policy of permeation as opposed to political action.
Pease later claimed he allowed Webb to dominate the Fabian
Society because he knew "Webb was always right". He
also joined forces with Webb to prevent H. G.
Wells from changing the Fabian Society
into a mass political organisation.
After being left a considerable amount of money by his uncle Joseph
Fry in 1913, Pease decided to retire from his
duties as Secretary of the Fabian Society.
He remained on the executive of the Society until deafness made his
participation in discussions impossible. Edward Pease died on 5th
January, 1955, at the age of ninety-seven.
(1)
Edward
Pease, The History of the Fabian Society (1918)
At
the second meeting of the Fabian Society on 25th January, 1884, reports
were presented on a lecture by Henry George and a Conference of the
Democratic Federation (later the Social Democratic Federation); the
rules were adopted, and Mr. J. G. Stapleton read a paper on "Social
conditions in England with a view to social reconstruction or development."
This was the first of a long series of Fabian fortnightly lectures
which have been continued ever since.
(2)
In later life, Beatrice Webb wrote about
meeting Edward Pease in the early days of the Fabian
Society.
When
we met him (Edward Pease) first, at the little meeting in the autumn
of 1883 at his rooms in Osnaburgh Street, out of which the Fabian
Society grew, he was twenty-six years old, an eager disciple of William
Morris. Though he worked in the City and was a member of the London
Stock Exchange, he had come to the conclusion that this was an immoral
life, and gave it up to become a "worker with his own hands",
i.e. a cabinet maker, an occupation which he pursued, largely in Newcastle,
until he was called back (by Sydney Webb) to become the Fabian Society's
first paid secretary at a salary of a pound a week.
(3)
Edward
Pease, The History of the Fabian Society (1918)
In
1894, Henry Hutchinson, who provided the funds for much of our country
lecturing, died, and to our complete surprise it was found that he
had appointed Sidney Webb, whom he hardly knew personally, his executor,
and had left the residue of his estate, between £9,000 and £10,000,
to five trustees - Sidney Webb, his daughter, myself, William Clarke,
and W. S. De Mattos. Miss Hutchinson died only fifteen months later,
also leaving to her colleagues the residue of her estate, something
under £1000, for similar purposes.
The trustees decided to devote part of the funds to initiating the
London School of Economics and Political Science, because they considered
that a thorough knowledge of these sciences was a necessity for people
concerned in social reconstruction, if that reconstruction was to
be carried out with prudence and wisdom; and in particular it was
essential that all classes of public officials should have the opportunity
of learning whatever can be known of economics and politics taught
on modern lines.
(4)
Clement
Attlee, As It Happened (1954)
My elder brother, Tom, was an architect and a great reader of Ruskin
and Morris. I too admired these great men and began to understand
their social gospel. My brother was helping at the Maurice Hostel
in the nearby Hoxton district of London. Our reading became more extensive.
After looking into many social reform ideas - such as co-partnership
- we both came to the conclusion that the economic and ethical basis
of society was wrong. We became socialists.
I recall how in October, 1907, we went to Clements Inn to try and
join the Fabian Society. Edward Pease, the Secretary, regarded us
as if we were two beetles who had crept under the door, and when we
said we wanted to join the Society he asked coldly, "Why?"
We said, humbly, that we were socialists and persuaded him we were
genuine.
I remember very well the first Fabian Society meeting we attended
at Essex Hall. The platform seemed to be full of bearded men: Aylmer
Maude, William Sanders, Sidney Webb and Bernard Shaw. I said to my
brother, "Have we got to grow a beard to join this show. H. G.
Wells was on the platform, speaking with a little piping voice; he
was very unimpressive.
Available from Amazon Books
(order below)
