Joseph Chamberlain

Politician

Joseph Chamberlain was born in London on July 8th, 1836 and is the Politician. At the age of 77, Joseph Chamberlain biography, profession, age, height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, measurements, education, career, dating/affair, family, news updates, and networth are available.

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Date of Birth
July 8, 1836
Nationality
England
Place of Birth
London
Death Date
Jul 2, 1914 (age 77)
Zodiac Sign
Cancer
Profession
Politician
Joseph Chamberlain Height, Weight, Eye Color and Hair Color

At 77 years old, Joseph Chamberlain physical status not available right now. We will update Joseph Chamberlain's height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Height
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Weight
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Hair Color
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Joseph Chamberlain Religion, Education, and Hobbies
Religion
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Hobbies
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Education
University College School
Joseph Chamberlain Spouse(s), Children, Affair, Parents, and Family
Spouse(s)
Harriet Kenrick, ​ ​(m. 1861; died 1863)​, Florence Kenrick, ​ ​(m. 1868; died 1875)​, Mary Endicott ​(m. 1888)​
Children
Beatrice Chamberlain, Austen Chamberlain, Neville Chamberlain, Ida Chamberlain, Hilda Chamberlain, Ethel Chamberlain
Dating / Affair
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Parents
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Joseph Chamberlain Life

Joseph Chamberlain, born as a revolutionary Liberal, then went on to condemn home rule for Ireland, a Liberal Unionist, and later served as a leading imperialist in the Conservative coalition.

In the course of his career, he split both major British parties. Chamberlain began his career in Birmingham, first as a screw manufacturer and then as a renowned mayor of the area.

He was a member of the radical Liberal Party and an opponent of the Elementary Education Act 1870 on the grounds that it might have resulted in subsidizing Church of England schools with local ratepayers' funds.

He had never attended university and had contempt for the aristocracy as a self-made businessman.

He joined the House of Commons at 39 years old, much later in life than those from more privileged backgrounds.

He came to prominence as a leader of the Liberal grassroots group in Gladstone's Second Government (1880–85).

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Joseph Chamberlain Career

Women, business career, and family life – all in the beginning.

Chamberlain was born in Camberwell to Joseph Chamberlain (1796–1874), a profitable shoe maker, and Caroline (1806–1875), mother of cheese (formerly beer) merchant Henry Harben. Richard Chamberlain, his younger brother, became a Liberal politician later. He was born in Highbury, a wealthy suburb of North London, and has been educated at University College School from 1850 to 1852, excelling academically and winning prizes in French and mathematics.

The elder Chamberlain was unable to provide advanced education for all his children, and Joseph Smith, who was apprenticed to the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers, worked for the family company (their factory had been on Milk Street, London, for three generations), was not able to provide quality leather shoes at a young age. Nettlefolds of Birmingham, his uncle's buggy business, in which his father had invested at 18, he joined him at 18 years old. When Chamberlain became a partner with Joseph Nettlefold and Chamberlain, the company became known as Nettlefold and Chamberlain. During England's most profitable period, the company exported two-thirds of all metal screws made in England, and by the time of Chamberlain's departure from industry in 1874, exporting was booming around the world.

Chamberlain married Harriet Kenrick, the daughter of holloware manufacturer Archibald Kenrick, of Berrow Court, Edgbaston, Birmingham, in July 1861; they had not met in 1861 until this year. Beatrice Chamberlain, their daughter, was born in May 1862. Harriet, who had a nefarious belief that she would die in childbirth, became ill two days after their son Austen's birth in October 1863 and died three days later. Chamberlain devoted himself to company, while the children were raised by their maternal grandparents.

Florence Kenrick, the daughter of Timothy Kenrick, was married by Chamberlain in 1868.

Four children were born in Chamberlain and Florence: the future Prime Minister Neville, Ida, 1869, Hilda in 1871 and Ethel in 1873. These four children's teaching was inherited by their elder half sister Beatrice, who was about to make her mark as an educator. Florence gave birth to their fifth child on February 13, 1875, but the girl and her child died within a day. Although he was a Unitarian during his lifetime, Chamberlain's involvement with losing both wives during childbirth resulted in him losing personal faith, rejecting religious creeds, and not requiring religious adherence of any of his children.

When leading a British delegation to Washington, D.C., to address the Newfoundland fisheries controversy in 1887, Chamberlain met his third wife, Mary Crowninshield Endicott, the 23-year-old daughter of United States Secretary of War William Crowninshield Endicott, in 1887. "One of the brightest and most intelligent girls I have yet to meet," he described her as "one of the most brilliant and most sophisticated girls I have ever encountered." Chamberlain proposed that he marry at St. John's Episcopal Church in New York City in March 1888, rather than Chamberlain's trademark orchid. In the second half of his career, Mary became a faithful promoter of his political aspirations and eased his integration into upper-class society. There were no children in the household.

Early political career

Chamberlain grew involved in Liberal politics, being influenced by Birmingham's strong progressive and liberal traditions as well as a long tradition of social action in the Unitarian Church in Chamberlain. A greater number of urban men were under pressure to redistribute parliamentary positions to cities and enfranchise a greater number of urban men. Earl Russell's Liberal government introduced a Reform Bill in 1866 to elect 400,000 new voters, but the Liberals, "Adullamite," criticized the Bill for overturning the social structure and chastised for refusing to reveal the secret ballot or household suffrage. The Bill was defeated and the government was forced to resign. Chamberlain was one of the 250,000 protesters in Birmingham, including Mayor Robert May; he recalled that "men poured into the hall, black as they were from the factories...the people were packed together like herrings" to listen to a John Bright address. Lord Derby's minority Conservative government passed a Reform Act in 1867, nearly doubleing the population from 1,430,000 to 2,470,000.

The Liberal Party took the 1868 election. Chamberlain was involved in the election campaign, celebrating Bright and George Dixon, a Birmingham MP, as a leader. Chamberlain was also influential in the local movement in favour of the Irish Disestablishment bill. A deputation led by William Harris invited him to stand for the Town Council in 1869, and he was elected to represent St. Paul's Ward in November.

Chamberlain and Jesse Collings were among the founders of the Birmingham Education League in 1867, which stated that of nearly 4.25 million children of school age, two million children, mainly in urban areas, did not attend school, with another 1 million in uninspected schools. Nonconformists were offended by the government's support for Church of England schools. Chamberlain favoured free, secular, compulsory education, saying that "it's as much the responsibility of the state to see that the children are educated as well as seeing that they are fed" and attributed the US and Prussia's success to public education. The Birmingham Education League developed into the National Education League, which held its first Conference in Birmingham in 1869, and suggested a school system funded by local rates and government grants that were managed by local authorities subjected to government oversight. The League had more than one hundred branches by 1870, majority in urban areas, and largely by men of trades unions and working men's organizations.

In January 1870, William Edward Forster, Vice President of the Committee on Education, introduced an Elementary Education Bill. Nonconformists condemned the proposal to finance church schools as part of the national educational system by the rates. The NEL was enraged by the absence of school commissions or compulsory education. On March 9, 1870, Chamberlain invited a team of 400 branch members and 46 MPs to visit prime minister William Ewart Gladstone at 10 Downing Street, the first time the two men had met. Chamberlain wowed the Prime Minister with his lucid speech, and Gladstone accepted changes that ruled out church schools from rate-payer oversight and granted them grants during the Bill's second reading. Liberal MPs were outraged over the legislation's compromises, and the government was defeated by the government, and the Bill was accepted by the House of Commons with the Conservatives' support. Chamberlain voted against the Act, and particularly Clause 25, which gave school boards of England and Wales the ability to pay the fees of poor students in vocational schools, theoretically allowing them to fund church schools. Several by-elections against Liberal candidates who refused to endorse Clause 25 were disqualified by the Education League, who did not endorse the removal of Clause 25. In 1873, a Liberal majority was elected to the Birmingham School Board, with Chamberlain as chairman. Eventually, a compromise was struck with the School Board's church component, which was agreed to make payments only from rate-payer's funds to schools that provide industrial education.

Chamberlain supported rural labour enfranchisement and a lower cost of land. He coined the phrase "Four F's: Free Church, Free Schools, Free Land, and Free Labour" in an article for the Fortnightly Review. Chamberlain wrote "The Liberal Party and its Leaders" in another article, criticizing Gladstone's leadership and calling for a more progressive direction for the party.

The Liberal Party won the municipal elections in November 1873, and Chamberlain was elected mayor of Birmingham. Although the Liberals had campaigned against their High Church Tory foes with the tag "The People Over the Priests," the Conservatives had condemned his Radicalism and labeled him a "monopolizer and a tyrant." Public works were particularly lax, and many urban dwellers lived in slums of mediocrity. As mayor, Chamberlain unveiled many civic changes, pledging that the city would be "parked, paved, assembled, marketed, and 'improved'."

The Birmingham Gas Light and Coke Company, as well as the Birmingham and Staffordshire Gas Light Company, were locked in constant competition, in which the city's streets were continuously digging up to lay mains. Chamberlain forcibly purchased the two businesses on behalf of the borough for £1,953,050, and even offered to buy the companies by hand if the ratepayers refused. The new municipal gas scheme made $34,000 in its first year of operation.

The city's water supply was deemed a threat to public safety – approximately half of the city's population was dependent on contaminated water, much of which was polluted by sewage. Only three days per week were available, requiring the use of well water and water carts for the remainder of the week. Chamberlain ordered the development of Birmingham's waterworks for a net sum of £1,350,000, citing the increasing death rate from contagious diseases in the city's poorest areas. "We have not the slightest intention of making money...We have not the slightest interest in the town's well being and the health of the people." Despite this notable executive move, Chamberlain was mistrustful of central authority and bureaucracy, preferring to give local communities the opportunity to act on their own initiative.

Chamberlain proposed a construction scheme involving slum clearing in Birmingham's city center in July 1875. During Disraeli's social reform program, Chamberlain had been consulted by Home Secretary Richard Assheton Cross during the preparation of the Artisan's and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875. Chamberlain purchased 50 acres (200,000 m2) of land (Corporation Street) in Birmingham's overcrowded slums. Chamberlain obtained the support of the President of the Local Government Board, George Sclater-Booth, overriding the demonstrations of local landlords and the commissioner of the Local Government Board's inquiry into the scheme. Chamberlain raised the money for the scheme by contributing £10,000 to the cause. However, the Improvement Committee found that moving slum-dwellers to municipally built housing would be too costly, and so the property was leased on a 75-year lease. Slum dwellers were eventually relocated to the suburbs, and the local government funded the scheme for £300,000. Between 1873 and 1881, the death rate in Corporation Street dropped dramatically, from 53% to 21 percent.

Public and private funds were used to install libraries, municipal swimming ponds, and schools during Chamberlain's tenure as mayor of Maryland. The Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery was expanded, and a number of new parks were opened. The Council House was opened on Corporation Street, while the Victoria Law Courts were constructed on Corporation Street.

With contemporaries commenting on his youth and appearance, including "a black velvet jacket, jaunty eyeglass in eye, and red neck tie tied through a ring," the mayoralty made Chamberlain a national and local celebrity. Chamberlain's contribution to the city's advancement gave him the privilege of the so-called "Birmingham caucus" for the remainder of his public career.

His biographer states:

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