Background
CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph was born in 1836. Son of late J. Chamberlain and Caroline, daughter of H. Harben.
CHAMBERLAIN, Joseph was born in 1836. Son of late J. Chamberlain and Caroline, daughter of H. Harben.
Studied at London University School. Doctor of Laws Cambridge, Doctor of Civil Law Oxford. Doctor of Laws; Doctor of Civil Law.
After a brief education at University College School there, in 1852 he joined his father's boot and shoe business and in 1854 was sent to Birmingham as his father's representative in the firm of Nettlefold and Chamberlain, screw manufacturers. In 1874 he retired with a large fortune. He already was a prominent member of the Birmingham Liberal Association and chairman of the Birmingham school board. In 1873 he was elected mayor of Birmingham on a program of vigorous reform and municipal improvement, which he carried out; Birmingham's era of good government and prosperity dates from this period. In 1876 Chamberlain was elected to Parliament and in 1880 entered Gladstone's cabinet as President of the Board of Trade and the close ally of Charles Dilke in pushing social and educational reform. In 1882, on his own responsibility, he made a personal effort to settle the Irish question by treating directly with the Anglo-Irish leader C. S. Parnell, then in jail for his advocacy of the boycott and direct action against the British. These and later efforts gave some promise of success, but Chamberlain's proposals for modified Home Rule for Ireland were rejected by the cabinet in 1885, whereupon Chamberlain and Dilke resigned. However, Chamberlain voted against Gladstone's Home Rule bill of 1886, on the ground that it was a step toward the separation of Ireland from the United Kingdom. By this step he created the Liberal Unionist Party, which won 78 seats out of 670 in the parliamentary election later in the year. On the whole, the new party supported the Conservatives, but tried to persuade them toward social and economic reforms. In 1893 Chamberlain's attacks were again the main reason for the defeat of a new Home Rule bill introduced by Gladstone. In 1895 he became Secretary of State for the Colonies in Lord Salisbury's Conservative ministry and was somewhat unfairly associated in the popular mind with the Jameson Raid on Transvaal and the Boer War, which he did not provoke, though he wholeheartedly supported it. His putting through the Australian Commonwealth Act in 1900 marks his belief in a policy of generous imperial federalism. As part of this belief, he was led to advocating the abandonment of free trade and the introduction of tariffs, so that preferential arrangements might be made with the various parts of the Empire. He outlined these views in May 1903, and in September he resigned from a cabinet that disagreed with him. Followed by a majority of the Liberal Unionists, he organized a great political crusade in favor of his policy, spearheaded by the Tariff Reform League. The main result was the splitting of the Conservative Unionist party and, to some degree, its utter defeat in the elections of January 1906. Thus, by following his convictions, Chamberlain brought about another great political schism, twenty years after the first. His political career came to an end in July, as a result of a severe paralytic stroke, though he retained his seat in the House of Commons.
Right Honourable.