Have you ever wondered how a group of intellectuals, meeting in a dingy London room in 1884, managed to reshape the entire political landscape of Britain? Or why the logo for one of the oldest political think tanks in the world is a humble tortoise? Let me take you on a journey through the fascinating history of the Fabian Society—a story of patience, intellect, and the slow but steady march toward social justice.
The Fabian Society. Controversies and Dangers.
The Tortoise That Changed Britain
Why a Tortoise?
Before we dive into the history, let’s talk about that tortoise. The Fabian Society took its name from a Roman general, Quintus Fabius Maximus, nicknamed “Cunctator”—which means “the Delayer”.
Fabius didn’t win his battles through head-on confrontation; he used tactics of harassment and attrition, wearing down his enemy through patience and careful strategy.
The Society’s first pamphlet explained their thinking brilliantly: “For the right moment you must wait, as Fabius did most patiently… but when the time comes you must strike hard, or your waiting will be in vain”.
This wasn’t just clever branding. It was the philosophical foundation of everything the Fabians would do. While other socialist movements talked about revolution, the Fabians believed in evolutionary socialism—the idea that change could come through gradual, peaceful reform rather than violent upheaval.
The Birth of a Movement
The Fabian Society was born on 4th January 1884 as an offshoot of an earlier group called the Fellowship of the New Life. The Fellowship members wanted to transform society by setting an example of clean, simplified living.
But some members wanted to get their hands dirty with actual politics, so they split off to form a separate society focused on practical political change.
What happened next was remarkable. The Society began attracting some of the most brilliant minds of the Victorian era. George Bernard Shaw, the playwright and polemicist, joined early on. Sidney Webb and Beatrice Webb—the power couple of early Fabianism—became the intellectual engine of the movement.
Other luminaries included Annie Besant, H.G. Wells, Emmeline Pankhurst, Virginia Woolf, and Leonard Woolf. Even Bertrand Russell dipped his toe in, though he later resigned.
But the Fabians weren’t just a gathering of celebrity intellectuals. They were deadly serious about changing society. The 1889 publication of Fabian Essays in Socialism, edited by Shaw, became the movement’s manifesto—selling 27,000 copies in just two years.
The Webbs: The Brains Behind the Operation
If you want to understand Fabianism, you need to understand the Webbs. Sidney and Beatrice Webb were extraordinary individuals who brought together rigorous research methodology with passionate political commitment.
Together they wrote countless studies of industrial Britain, developing economic models that applied to ownership of capital as well as land.
Their influence extended far beyond pamphlets and essays. In 1895, the Webbs used a £20,000 bequest from a Derby Fabian named Henry Hutchinson to found the London School of Economics—initially intended as a research institute to “provide proof positive of the collectivist ideal”.
The irony isn’t lost on history enthusiasts that LSE would later become home to figures like Friedrich Hayek, who championed very different economic ideas!
The Webbs also founded the New Statesman magazine in 1913, which remains a leading voice on the left to this day.
From Ideas to Power: The Labour Connection
The Fabians initially tried to “permeate” the Liberal and Conservative parties with socialist ideas. But in 1900, they played a crucial role in forming the Labour Representation Committee—which would become the Labour Party in 1906. Sidney Webb actually wrote the group’s constitution, borrowing heavily from the Fabian Society’s founding documents.
This affiliation with Labour has lasted ever since. The Fabian Society is the only one of the Labour Party’s original founders that remains affiliated in unchanged form.
The Fabian Legacy: Beyond British Shores
The Fabian Society’s influence extended far beyond Britain. Future leaders from across the world were exposed to Fabian thought and incorporated it into their own political philosophies.
Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, framed economic policy for India on Fabian social-democratic lines. Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s founding father, admitted in his memoirs that his initial political philosophy was strongly influenced by Fabian ideas—though he later found them impractical. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan, was a Fabian member in the early 1930s.
It’s quite something to think that a small London-based think tank influenced the governance of nations across three continents.
The Elephant in the Room: The Fabians and Empire
Now, let’s be honest about the complicated legacy of the Fabian Society. Like many progressive movements of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, the Fabians held views that we would find deeply troubling today.
Many leading Fabians, including the Webbs, Shaw, and Wells, were proponents of eugenics—the idea that the human race could be “improved” through selective breeding and social engineering. Sidney Webb wrote about the problem of the “breeding of degenerate hordes” while advocating for compulsory sterilization and segregation.
Havelock Ellis, a founding member, argued that welfare provision to the poor should be limited because the “most radically sympathetic” approach was to ensure “the beggar shall not be born”.
The Society’s views on empire were also complex and sometimes troubling. In 1900, they published Fabianism and the Empire, which argued that imperialism was the “new stage of the international polity” and expressed support for Britain in the Boer War.
The document claimed that small nations like the Boers were “anachronisms in the age of empires”. Some Fabians argued that empire was necessary to “breed… a moderately Imperial race” who would be more productive and militarily effective.
To their credit, the modern Fabian Society doesn’t hide from this history. Their website explicitly acknowledges that “leading members of the society held racist prejudices and opinions which were not in keeping with the society’s commitment to equality for all” and encourages research into the Society’s “historic engagement with race and Empire”.
The Modern Fabian Society
Today, the Fabian Society continues as Britain’s oldest political think tank, with over 6,500 members. It remains affiliated with the Labour Party and continues its traditional role of feeding new ideas into political debate.
The Society’s influence on Labour governments has been remarkable. Ed Balls’s 1992 Fabian pamphlet advocating Bank of England independence led directly to one of the new Labour government’s first and most significant policy changes after 1997.
A Fabian Tax Commission in 2000 influenced Labour’s decision to raise National Insurance to fund NHS spending.
The Young Fabians, the Society’s under-31 branch, continues to provide a networking and discussion forum for younger Labour activists. Local Fabian societies across Britain hold events and debates, keeping the tradition of grassroots political education alive.
The Fabian Window: A Symbol of a Movement
You can’t talk about the Fabian Society without mentioning the Fabian Window—a remarkable stained glass creation designed by George Bernard Shaw in 1910. The window depicts early Fabians helping to build “the new world” and originally included a now-controversial image: a wolf in sheep’s clothing, representing the Society’s “preferred methodology” of working within existing institutions to achieve radical change.
The window was stolen from a Webb memorial house in 1978, disappeared for decades, resurfaced at Sotheby’s in 2005, and was eventually restored to display at the London School of Economics in a ceremony presided over by Tony Blair.
The symbolism is perfect. A piece of Fabian history, lost for years, restored to its place—just like the Society’s ideas, never quite gone, always ready to influence the next generation of political thinkers.
What the Fabians Got Right
Despite their flaws, the Fabians deserve enormous credit for several things:
Patience and persistence: While other radical movements burned out in fiery rhetoric, the Fabians kept working, kept writing, kept persuading for over a century.
Intellectual rigor: The Fabians believed in evidence. Beatrice Webb’s 1909 Minority Report to the Commission on the Poor Law provided the foundation for much of the modern welfare state. They showed that socialism wasn’t just about slogans—it could be built on solid research.
Willingness to engage: The Fabians never isolated themselves. They engaged with the political establishment, worked through existing institutions, and understood that real change requires winning arguments, not just shouting them.
Adaptability: From the Webbs to Tony Blair to today’s debates on inequality, work, and poverty, the Fabians have shown a remarkable ability to renew themselves and respond to changing circumstances.
What the Fabians Got Wrong
But we shouldn’t romanticize the Fabians. Their elitism is impossible to ignore. Many Fabians assumed that socialism would be achieved through top-down reforms enacted by “enlightened and progressive intellectuals and politicians who could see more clearly than the working class itself how and why capitalism perpetuated inequality”.
They were sometimes “paternalistic and technocratic elitists, who promoted change on behalf of, rather than by, the working class”.
And as we’ve discussed, their views on race, and selective breeding were deeply problematic.
The Fabian Society Today
In 2026, the Fabian Society continues its work as a “critical friend” to Labour governments. Recent publications tackle issues of class, inequality, women’s rights, and the future of the welfare state. The Society is engaging with complex and sometimes controversial issues, such as assisted dying, from a left-wing perspective.
The Society’s recent work includes major reports on poverty among people in their 60s, proposing a “national occupational health service to keep people well in work”. They’re grappling with issues like gender budgeting, affordable housing, and secularism. The issues have changed, but the method hasn’t: rigorous research, careful argument, and patient persuasion.
How are the Fabians Funded?
The Fabian Society is funded primarily through membership fees, donations, grants, and revenue from publications and events.
Membership subscriptions provide the core of its income, supplemented by additional donations from members and supporters. These donations often fund specific research projects on renewing left-wing policy.
The Society also receives project-specific grants and sponsorships from organisations, though it operates under a strict ethics policy and does not accept funding from companies deemed unethical.
Revenue from selling publications, pamphlets, and event tickets provides another income stream.
The Young Fabians, the under-30s branch, receives a central grant from the Fabian Society itself.
The Society emphasises financial transparency and has been positively rated by organisations such as Who Funds You? and Transparify. It does not undertake lobbying projects.
Under UK law, the Fabian Society qualifies as a “members association.” This means that any funding for projects that “promotes policies for adoption by the Labour party” is a regulated political donation and must be declared to the Electoral Commission if it exceeds £7,500. The Society has stated that only a small minority of its projects fall into this category.
Historically, the Fabian Society has relied on its members and donations. In 1894, a significant bequest of £10,000 from Henry Hutchinson helped launch the London School of Economics. As early as 1886, with only 67 members, the Society had an income of £35 and 19 shillings.
The Society’s work relies on careful research, and effective work depends on supplying members with a great deal of literature. This cannot be financed without a subscription rate that might seem high to some, so the parent Society relies on larger subscriptions from those who can afford to pay them.
Why the Fabians Still Matter
The Fabian Society matters because it represents a particular approach to political change that remains relevant today. In an age of instant activism and social media outrage, the Fabians remind us that lasting change is often slow, difficult, and unglamorous. They show that ideas matter—that good research and careful argument can, over time, reshape the world.
The Fabians also remind us that progress isn’t simple. The same people who championed the welfare state and universal healthcare held racist views and supported eugenics. The same movement that laid the foundations for social justice in Britain also defended empire. The history of progressive politics is more complicated than simple stories of good versus evil.
Today, as Labour and the left face new challenges—from inequality to climate change to the rise of right-wing populism—the Fabian tradition of patient, evidence-based political change remains as relevant as ever.
A Final Thought
In a world that often values speed and spectacle, the Fabian tortoise still has something to teach us. Changing society isn’t about flashy gestures or overnight revolutions. It’s about showing up, day after day, writing the pamphlets, making the arguments, building the institutions, and waiting for the right moment to strike.
Over 140 years after a group of Victorian intellectuals decided to name their society after a Roman general who knew the value of patience, the Fabian Society is still at it. Still publishing pamphlets. Still holding meetings. Still trying to change the world—one careful argument at a time.
As the Fabians themselves put it back in 1884, you have to wait for the right moment. But when the time comes, you must strike hard. Or your waiting will be in vain.
Want to Learn More?
The Fabian Society welcomes new members and publishes regularly on a wide range of policy issues. The London School of Economics holds the Society’s archives, including extensive correspondence and early photographs of Fabian Society events. You can also subscribe to the Fabian Review magazine or join one of the local Fabian societies across the UK.
Whether you agree with them or not, understanding the Fabian Society is essential to understanding how modern Britain—and indeed much of the world—came to be shaped. They are, for better and worse, one of the most important political movements you’ve probably never heard of.
Now, isn’t that worth thinking about?
Steven Barrett KC
A leading barrister and activist, Steven Barrett has reminded us that the Fabian movement advocates state control not freedom. The state is authoritarian and will have control over others. He points out that all Labour Prime Ministers have been members of the Society. Kier Starmer was on their executive committee.
https://sbarrettbar.substack.com/about
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Updated 5 August 2026 with a section on How are the Fabians Funded?
The content and final editing remain my own.
