Lawrence Sheriff St, Rugby CV22 5EH, United Kingdom
Rugby School where Neville Chamberlain studied.
College/University
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom
The University of Birmingham where Neville Chamberlain studied.
Career
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1932
London, United Kingdom
British statesman Neville Chamberlain compiles his budget on April 16, 1932.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1932
London, United Kingdom
British statesman Neville Chamberlain
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1936
10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, United Kingdom
Neville Chamberlain leaves Downing Street in London to present his budget at the House of Commons, accompanied by his wife Anne on April 21, 1936.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1937
London, United Kingdom
British statesman Neville Chamberlain
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1923
Harrogate, United Kingdom
Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Chancellor of the Exchequer and later British Prime Minister, during a holiday in Harrogate.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1926
London, United Kingdom
Neville Chamberlain, English Conservative politician, judge and lawyer Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, and British politician Walter Edward Guinness arrive for a Sunday morning meeting on the General Strike crisis in May 1926.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1926
Bloomsbury Square, London, United Kingdom
Neville Chamberlain attends the opening of the Pharmacological Laboratories of the Pharmaceutical Society at Bloomsbury Square in London on June 16, 1926.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives back at 10 Downing Street in London, having returned from a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Bad Godesberg on September 25, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Bad Godesberg, Germany
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives in Bad Godesberg to meet Adolf Hitler at his Obersalzberg Villa to prepare the Munich Conference on September 16, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Munich, Bavaria, Germany
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler with his interpreter Paul Schmidt and Neville Henderson at dinner during Chamberlain's 1938 appeasement visit to Munich.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with his predecessor Stanley Baldwin 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
London, United Kingdom
British statesman and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain at Heston Airport on his return from Munich after meeting with Hitler, making his address.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Berchtesgaden, Germany
British Prime Minister Arthur Neville Chamberlain, Adolf Hilter and his interpreter Dr. Paul Schmidt meet in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
London, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain leaves Heston Aerodrome for talks with Adolf Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, September 29, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Bad Godesberg, Germany
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain shakes hands with German Chancellor Adolf Hitler on September 24, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Munich, Germany
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain with Benito Mussolini and Italian Foreign Minister Galeazzo Ciano on September 29, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
France
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain (left) with French Prime Minister Édouard Daladier in November 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
London, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain leaves Heston for a meeting in Munich with Adolf Hitler on September 22, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
Westminster, London SW1A 1AA, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and his wife on the balcony at the Palace with King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on November 5, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1938
London, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier at Croydon Airport on September 18, 1938.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
Television Centre, 101 Wood Ln, Shepherd's Bush, London W12 7FS, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in a BBC studio announcing the declaration of war on September 3, 1939
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and King George VI of Great Britain at 10 Downing street.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain makes a speech.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
London, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, with his future successor Sir Winston Churchill at a medal ceremony attended by the King.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
Piazza Beniamino Gigli, 00184 Roma RM, Italy
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Italian leader Benito Mussolini, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, and Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano in their box at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Rome, Italy, for a gala performance on January 14, 1939.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1939
Rome, Italy
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, and Italian leader Benito Mussolini at Rome railway station on January 13, 1939.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1940
Walbrook, London EC4N 8BH, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addresses his first public meeting since the outbreak of the war entitled The Progress and Prospects of the War at the Mansion House in London on January 9, 1940.
Gallery of Neville Chamberlain
1916
Chamberlain as Lord Mayor of Birmingham alongside Prime Minister Billy Hughes of Australia in May 1916.
Neville Chamberlain, English Conservative politician, judge and lawyer Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, and British politician Walter Edward Guinness arrive for a Sunday morning meeting on the General Strike crisis in May 1926.
Neville Chamberlain attends the opening of the Pharmacological Laboratories of the Pharmaceutical Society at Bloomsbury Square in London on June 16, 1926.
10 Downing St, Westminster, London SW1A 2AA, United Kingdom
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives back at 10 Downing Street in London, having returned from a meeting with Adolf Hitler in Bad Godesberg on September 25, 1938.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives in Bad Godesberg to meet Adolf Hitler at his Obersalzberg Villa to prepare the Munich Conference on September 16, 1938.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler with his interpreter Paul Schmidt and Neville Henderson at dinner during Chamberlain's 1938 appeasement visit to Munich.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, French Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier at Croydon Airport on September 18, 1938.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Italian leader Benito Mussolini, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, and Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano in their box at the Teatro dell'Opera di Roma, Rome, Italy, for a gala performance on January 14, 1939.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, Italian Foreign Minister Count Ciano, Lord Halifax, the British Foreign Secretary, and Italian leader Benito Mussolini at Rome railway station on January 13, 1939.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain addresses his first public meeting since the outbreak of the war entitled The Progress and Prospects of the War at the Mansion House in London on January 9, 1940.
Neville Chamberlain was a British politician, executive and statesman who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940. He also was the leader of the Conservative Party.
Background
Arthur Neville Chamberlain was born on March 18, 1869 in Edgbaston, Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was a son of Joseph Chamberlain and Florence Kenrick. His mother died when he was a small boy. Neville Chamberlain also had four sisters and one brother.
Education
Neville Chamberlain attended Rugby School. Later he studied at Mason College (now the University of Birmingham). At the age of 21, Chamberlain went to the Bahamas to manage an estate there for several years. That business venture ultimately failed, but he had proven himself as a talented manager and businessman. Chamberlain found success in business after returning to England.
In his lifetime, he was bestowed with a Doctor of Civil Law degree by Oxford University. He was also awarded Honorary Doctor of Laws degrees from Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Bristol and Reading Universities.
Neville Chamberlain started his career as Managing Director at Hoskins and Son company in 1897. He served as Managing Director of the company for 17 years. In 1906, he was appointed Governor of Birmingham's General Hospital and also became a founding member of the national United Hospitals Committee of the British Medical Association. In 1915, Chamberlain was promoted to the position of Lord Mayor of Birmingham and held this post until 1916. In December 1916, Chamberlain accepted a national role as Director-General of National Service, but after seven months was dropped by the Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
Having gained enough experience in public office Neville Chamberlain decided to stand for the House of Commons and became a member of Parliament for Birmingham Ladywood in 1918. From 1919 to 1921, he served as the chairman of the National Unhealthy Areas Committee and visited slums of England. In 1922, he became Postmaster General and, in 1923, was promoted to Paymaster General. Chamberlain entered the cabinet in March 1923 as Minister for Health, and was promoted, in August 1923, to Chancellor of the Exchequer. When the Conservatives returned to power in November 1924, Chamberlain declined the offer of leading the treasury and instead requested the Ministry for Health. He held this post until 1929.
In 1929, Neville Chamberlain became a member of Parliament for Birmingham Edgbaston and held this post until 1940. He also held a post of chairman of the Conservative Party from 1930 to 1931. He briefly served as Minister for Health from August 25, 1931 to November 5, 1931. On November 5, 1931 Chamberlain became Chancellor of the Exchequer and held this office until 1937. In 1937, he succeeded Stanley Baldwin as the Prime Minister and also became Leader of the Conservative Party.
As the Prime Minister he did a lot in order to avert World War II by all means. He tried to persuade Italy to move away from German influence and also intended to open a reasoned dialogue with the dictator Adolf Hitler. However, when Hitler seized the remaining (non-German) part of Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain accelerated British rearmament program and rejected further appeasement of any sort. With Poland attacked, Chamberlain responded with a British declaration of war on Germany on September 3, 1939. Following the failure of a British expedition to Norway in April 1940 and his poor relations with the Labour Party, Chamberlain lost the support from many Conservative members in the House of Commons. Resultantly, he resigned on May 10, 1940, the day of the German invasion of the Low Countries. After that he served loyally as Lord President of the Council. Additionally, he was also the Leader of the Conservative Party. Chamberlain resigned from both the positions on September 30, 1940. On November 9, 1940, Neville Chamberlain died due to bowel cancer.
Neville Chamberlain entered politics in 1918. During the elections to the House of Commons he was one of the few male candidates to specifically target women voters. He issued a special leaflet headed "A word to the Ladies" and held two meetings in the afternoon. As a result Chamberlain was elected with almost 70% of the vote. When Chamberlain became Minister for Health in 1924 he presented the Cabinet with an agenda containing 25 pieces of legislation he hoped to see enacted. Before he left office in 1929, 21 of the 25 bills had passed into law. Chamberlain also sought the abolition of the elected Poor Law Boards of Guardians which administered relief. In 1929, he managed to initiate the Local Government Act 1929 to abolish the Poor Law boards entirely.
As Chancellor of the Exchequer Neville Chamberlain proposed a 10% tariff on foreign goods and lower or no tariffs on goods from the colonies and the Dominions. He presented his first budget in April 1932. He not just reduced the interest rate on Britain's war debt from 5% to 3.5% but successfully declared a budget surplus by 1934, thus restoring cuts in unemployment compensation and civil servant salaries. Chamberlain founded the Unemployed Assistance Board in 1934. He wanted the issue of helping the unemployed to be removed from the political arguments of the party. He also wanted the Unemployed Assistance Board to be responsible not only for the maintenance of the unemployed, but also for their welfare.
When the world faced with a resurgent Germany under Hitler's leadership in 1935, Chamberlain was convinced of the need for rearmament. Chamberlain especially urged the strengthening of the Royal Air Force.
In 1937, Neville Chamberlain became Prime Minister and passed the Factories Act of 1937, which laid emphasis on better working conditions and limited working hours for women and children. His other policies on the domestic front included the Holidays with Pay Act 1938 and the Housing Act 1938. These acts recommended that employers give workers a week off with pay and also provided subsidies aimed at encouraging slum clearance and maintained rent control. However, Chamberlain's plans for the reform of local government were shelved because of the outbreak of World War II in 1939. Besides, the raising of the school-leaving age to 15, scheduled for implementation on September 1, 1939, did not go into effect.
As for the relations between the United Kingdom and the Irish Free State, that had been strained since the 1932 appointment of Éamon de Valera as President of the Executive Council, Chamberlain had taken a hard-line stance against concessions to the Irish. Despite being tough negotiators, the Irish finally conceded to pay £10 million to the British. However, Britain had to compromise with the access of the three Treaty Ports excepting at the time of war. The issue of partition, however, was not resolved.
Neville Chamberlain sought to conciliate Germany and make the Nazi state a partner in a stable Europe. However, these attempts to secure such a settlement were frustrated because Germany was in no hurry to talk to Britain. Later Chamberlain opened direct talks with Italy. He believed that it was essential to cement relations with Italy in the hope that an Anglo-Italian alliance would forestall Hitler from imposing his rule over Austria. However, in March 1938 Austria became a part of Germany and Chamberlain placed blame on both Germany and Austria. In the 1938 Czech crisis, Chamberlain sought to avoid war over a distant country where no British interests were involved. He conceived a dramatic plan to fly to Germany and negotiate with Hitler directly. This led to the Munich agreement of September 1938, which resolved the crisis on Hitler's terms, but without war and with a promise of future goodwill. However, Hitler's occupation of Prague in March 1939 discredited appeasement and made Chamberlain look weak and foolish. He continued the quest for peace, and when Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, Chamberlain held back from declaring war until a revolt of senior cabinet ministers forced him to resign.
Views
Quotations:
"In common with my colleagues, I recognise that no single remedy can be a complete cure, but while I am ready to examine every proposal. I must frankly say that I believe a tariff levied on imported foreign goods will be found to be indispensable. The ultimate destiny of this country is bound up with the Empire. I hope to take my part in forwarding a policy which was the main subject of my father's last great political campaign. I hope that we may presently develop into a National Party, and get rid of that odious title of Conservative, which has kept so many from joining us in the past."
"The Labour Party, obviously intends to fasten upon our backs the accusation of being 'warmongers' and they are suggesting that we have 'hush hush' plans for rearmament which we are concealing from the people. As a matter of fact we are working on plans for rearmament at an early date for the situation in Europe is most alarming. We are not sufficiently advanced to reveal our ideas to the public, but of course we cannot deny the general charge of rearmament and no doubt if we try to keep our ideas secret till after the election, we should either fail, or if we succeeded, lay ourselves open to the far more damaging accusation that we had deliberately deceived the people. I have therefore suggested that we should take the bold course of actually appealing to the country on a defence programme, thus turning the Labour party's dishonest weapon into a boomerang."
"I am myself a man of peace to the depths of my soul. Armed conflict between nations is a nightmare to me; but if I were convinced that any nation had made up its mind to dominate the world by fear of its force, I should feel that it must be resisted. Under such a domination, life for people who believe in liberty would not be worth living: but war is a fearful thing, and we must be very clear, before we embark on it, that it is really the great issues that are at stake."
"This morning I had another talk with the German Chancellor, Herr Hitler, and here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine. We regard the agreement signed last night and the Anglo-German Naval Agreement, as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again."
"I believe the persecution arose out of two motives: a desire to rob the Jews of their money and a jealously of their superior cleverness. No doubt Jews aren't a lovable people. I don't care about them myself; but that is not sufficient to explain the Pogrom."
Personality
Historian Nick Smart said that Chamberlain's personality healthily insulated from reflecting on the consequences of his actions. When setbacks occurred, and there were usually many, he could explain these away as acts of nature, or more usually, as someone else's fault. Chamberlain was not the sort of person who confided to even friends and acquaintances.
Quotes from others about the person
Winston Churchill: "It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart-the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour."
Adolf Hitler: "If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella, I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of the photographers."
Benito Mussolini: "These men are not made of the same stuff as the Francis Drakes and the other magnificent adventurers who created the empire. These, after all, are the tired sons of a long line of rich men, and they will lose their empire."
James B. Reston: "That, too, was what Neville Chamberlain was clearly doing in London from 1937 until the gray morning of 1941 when his cancer finally killed him. During those fateful years he too was "sparring with the situation," seeking an easy way out. He has been accused round the world of being a foolish old man who did not understand what it would take to defend his country against the Nazis. That, I am sure, is a fundamental error. He knew full well the number of planes and tanks it would take, but he could not bring himself to the hard decision of ordering the industrial and economic revolution that was necessary to produce them."
Connections
Neville Chamberlain married Anne de Vere Cole in 1911. The marriage produced two children.
Neville Chamberlain, Appeasement and the British Road to War
The book argues that, when Neville Chamberlain came to power, appeasement was part of a broad consensus in British society to avoid World War II. It provides an interpretation of Chamberlain's conduct by showing how he used and abused the mood of the age to justify a selfish and ambitious policy which was idealogically prejudiced. Yet, when Hitler entered Prague in March 1939, the public mood changed, and Chamberlain found himself a prisoner of a new mood which forced him to make a tactical and half-hearted attempt to stand up to Hitler for which he had no enthusiasm.
1998
Neville Chamberlain
Neville Chamberlain remains one of the most controversial figures of twentieth-century British politics. For many years he was admired, even revered, throughout Britain. After serving as Prime Minister, however, Chamberlain left office a reviled and disdained public figure. This book seeks to explain these extremes while offering the author's assessment of what Chamberlain's historical reputation ought to be.
1991
Neville Chamberlain: A Biography
Based on the study of over 150 collections of private papers on both sides of the Atlantic, as well as exhaustive exploration of British government records held in the National Archives, it is no exaggeration to say that the author has surveyed virtually all the existing archival material written by or to Chamberlain, as well as a high proportion of that referring to him. As such, this volume will no doubt establish itself as the definitive account of Chamberlain's life and career, and provide a much fuller and fairer picture of his actions than has hitherto been the case.