‘Some curious characters floated on the surface’: Webb’s Entry into Nationalist Politics

Abstract

In the late 1860s Webb became convinced that Ireland needed self-government and in 1870 he joined the young Irish home rule movement. This was an unusual political cause for an Irish Quaker to adopt, but it did not constitute a rupture with his friends, family or social circle or a bizarre and illogical departure from his beliefs. Webb’s sense of social justice led him towards home rule, just as many British liberals and radicals eventually embraced Irish home rule alongside suffragism, temperance and Indian reform. Webb was, then, an Irish member of a much wider global trend in liberal social thought. However, it is also in examining his intense participation in the home rule movement that his character and values really start to emerge. The highs and lows of politics sometimes stretched Webb’s personality to its limits, and he struggled with depression; he also clung to his own ethical code and resigned when he could not accept decisions that impinged on his conscience.

Alfred Webb, describing the home rule movement, in Webb, Autobiography, p. 40.