One often thinks of certain married people 'I wonder what they saw in each other?' We think we know what the lovers portrayed in A Victorian Courtship, Beatrice Potter & Sidney Webb, saw in each other – to many of those they influenced they must have seemed like human computers cherishing each other intellectually, but hardly passionate lovers, Jeanne Mackenzie in this most readable book tells how these two came together and how their relationship developed from friendship to courtship to marriage.

Beatrice Potter was one of nine daughters of a wealthy father and in April 1888 she wrote 'So all in all I am to be the old maid of the family' Beatrice said her father 'married seven headstrong self-willed women to men he thoroughly approved and considered suitable'. He would have liked to see Beatrice married too, but after his wife died he was glad to have Beatrice at home. She decided that she needed outside work although she had enjoyed her London seasons. She did research into conditions of work in the tailoring trade and the Co-operative Movement following her motto 'to know in order to act'. For some time she was in love with Joseph Chamberlain, but