George Douglas Howard Cole

George Douglas Howard Cole 1889-1959, English economist, labor historian, and socialist. Educated at Oxford, he was long associated with the university and held a professorship from 1944 to 1957. For many years a leading exponent of guild socialism , he later returned to his original Fabianism, acting as chairman of the Fabian Society from 1939 to 1946 and becoming its president in 1952. His many books, mainly on labor and socialism, range from popular works to scholarly studies. Among his original works are A Short History of the British Working Class Movement (3 vol., 1927; rev. ed. 1948), The British Common People (with Raymond W. Postgate, 1939; rev. ed. The British People, 1947), and A History of Socialist Thought (5 vol. in 7, 1953-60). With his wife, Margaret Isabel (Postgate) Cole, 1893-1980, he wrote over 30 detective stories as well as works on economics and politics. Her works include Beatrice Webb (1945), The Story of Fabian Socialism (1961), and a biography of her husband (1971). She also edited Beatrice Webb 's diaries.

Bibliography: See biography of George Cole by L. P. Carpenter (1973).

Cole, G. D. H. ( George Douglas Howard Cole) (1889–1959), Fabian economist, held important academic posts at Oxford. He became prominent immediately before the First World War as a leading exponent of guild socialism and published his first major work, The World of Labour, in 1913. During the 1930s he was acknowledged as the most prolific writer on the intellectual history of British socialism in articles in the New Statesman and in his works, which included A History of Socialist Thought (1953–8). He was married to Margaret Postgate (sister of Raymond Postgate) with whom he collaborated in detective fiction.