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Joseph Chamberlain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. 
Joseph Chamberlain (July 8, 1836 - July 3, 1914) was a British
politician. In his early years he was a Liberal and a campaigner for
educational reform, and became President of the Board of Trade. Later
he re-emerged in alliance with the Conservatives, as an imperialist and
protectionist, serving as Colonial Secretary. He was the father of
Austen Chamberlain and Neville Chamberlain.
Joseph Chamberlain
was born in London to a successful shoemaker. At the age of 16 he was
apprenticed to the shoemaking business, and at 18 was sent to
Birmingham to join his uncle's screwmaking business, Nettlefolds (later
part of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds), in which his father had
invested. There
were strong radical and liberal traditions among shoemakers, in his
adopted home city of Birmingham, while the Unitarian church of which he
was a member had a tradition of social action. It was not surprising
that he became involved in Liberal politics. In 1867 he founded the
Birmingham Education League (later the National Education League) and
campaigned for free public education independent of the Church of
England. He also turned the Birmingham Liberal Federation into an
election-winning caucus.
In 1873 he became
mayor of Birmingham, in which capacity he promoted many civic
improvements, leaving the city "parked, paved, assized, marketed, gas
& watered and improved". He was elected as one of the city's MPs in
1876, and swiftly rose through the parliamentary ranks, becoming
President of the Board of Trade in the government of William Ewart
Gladstone in 1880.
In the run-up to the
1885 general election a series of articles was published in the
Fortnightly Review, written by some of Chamberlain's associates under
his close direction. Chamberlain wrote the preface for the collected
volume, called the Radical Programme. It called for land reform, more
direct taxation, free public education, the disestablishment of the
Church, universal male suffrage, and more protection for trade unions.
This became the basis of the "unauthorised programme" which Chamberlain
put forward during the election campaign.
The Liberals won the
election, but fell just short of an overall majority against the
Conservatives and the Irish Nationalists led by Charles Stewart
Parnell. Gladstone offered the Irish a Home Rule deal, which
Chamberlain opposed as a matter of principle; he believed that Ireland
had no more right to independence than London did. He resigned from the
Liberal government and helped to found the Liberal Unionist party along
with Lord Hartington (later the 8th Duke of Devonshire) and other
members of the Whig faction. Unlike the Whigs he did not immediately
enter the Unionist government, even though he already had kindred
spirits in the Conservative Party such as Lord Randolph Churchill. He
probably hoped that Gladstone would soon retire, allowing him to return
to the Liberal party as leader, but Gladstone remained as leader much
longer than he expected, foiling this ambition and pushing him towards
the Conservatives.
In 1895 he became
Colonial Secretary in the Conservative and Unionist government of Lord
Salisbury. He showed himself to be a keen imperialist, and as a key
proponent of the Boer War he became a leading figure in the "khaki
election" of 1900. In 1903 he resigned to lead a campaign for Tariff
Reform, supporting a protectionist system of "Imperial Preference" in
which tariffs would be levied against imports from outside the British
Empire. The divided Unionists were trounced in the 1905 general
election, and Chamberlain was the favourite to take over as their
leader. However, in July 1906 he suffered a seriously debilitating
stroke and never took an active part in politics again. He died on July
3, 1914.
Winston Churchill
called him "a splendid piebald: first black, then white; or in
political terms, first fiery red, then true blue". This has been the
conventional view of Chamberlain's politics - that he moved rightwards
across the political spectrum from the left of the Liberal party to the
right of the Conservatives. An alternative view is that he was always a
radical in home affairs and an imperialist in foreign affairs, and even
that these views were not in great conflict with each other - in both
he rejected "laissez-faire capitalism". Even after leaving the Liberals
he was a proponent of Workmen's Compensation and old-age pensions.
Joseph Chamberlain
was married three times. His first wife Harriet Kenrick died soon after
giving birth to their second child Austen. He married Harriet's cousin
Florence Kenrick in 1868; she bore him four children, one of whom was
Neville, and died in childbirth in 1875. In 1888 he married an
American, Mary Endicott. Austen and Neville both became senior
Conservative politicians.
He helped to found
the University of Birmingham and was its first Chancellor. His papers
can be found in the Library there, and the University's clock tower is
known as "Old Joe" after him. He is also commemorated by Chamberlain
Square in central Birmingham. A large iron clock errected in his honour
stands in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter, near the cemetery in which he
is buried. His Birmingham home, Highbury Hall, is now a civic
conference venue and venue for civil marriages, and is open to the
public occasionally.
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