Chamberlain, THE RIGHT HON. JOSEPH, M.P., is the eldest son of the late Mr Joseph Chamberlain, and was born in London in July 1836. He was educated at University College School, and entered his father's screw factory at Birmingham (the name of the firm being Nettlefold), from which, however, he retired in 1874. Mr Chamberlain had by this time acquired considerable celebrity as a Radical politician. In 1868 he was appointed a member of the Birmingham Town-council; was Mayor of Birmingham from 1873 to 1876, and chairman of the Birmingham School-board from 1874 to 1876. After unsuccessfully contesting Sheffield against Mr Roebuck in 1874, he was returned for Birmingham without opposition in June 1876. He soon made his mark in parliament, and on the return of the Liberals to power in 1880 he was appointed President of the Board of Trade, with a seat in the cabinet. To Mr Chamberlain's exertions was due the passing of the Bankruptcy Bill, but his efforts to amend the Merchant Shipping Acts were unsuccessful. Meanwhile his influence was increasing rapidly outside the House; he came to be regarded as the leader of the extreme Radical party, and enunciated schemes for the regeneration of the masses which were based on the doctrines of the 'restitution' of land and the 'ransom' of property. During the last hours of Mr Gladstone's government he was understood to be opposed to the renewal of the Irish Crimes Act; and during the general election of 1886 he was most severe in his strictures on the moderate Liberals, and produced an 'unauthorised' programme (in opposition to that of Mr Gladstone), which included the readjustment of taxation, free schools, and the creation of allotments by compulsory purchase. He was returned free of expense by the western division of Birmingham. On February 1, 1886, he became President of the Local Government Board, but resigned on March 26 because of his strong objections to Mr Gladstone's Home Rule measures for Ireland; and after the 'Round Table' conference had failed to reunite the Liberal party he assumed an attitude of uncompromising hostility to his old leader's new policy, and was bitterly assailed by Home Rulers as a renegade. He became leader of the Liberal-Unionists when the Duke of Devonshire went to the Upper House. Lord Salisbury sent him to Washington as commissioner on the Canadian fishery dispute; and in 1895 he was made Colonial minister in the Unionist Cabinet. As such he had, besides sharing in responsibilities of his colleagues (see SALISBURY), to face the troubles in South Africa (see JAMESON, L. S.), and to cherish closer fellow-feeling with the Colonies, as by welcoming the colonial ministers and colonial troops to London at the Queen's 'Diamond Jubilee' (1897), and by concessions to Canadian commercial autonomy. In 1896 he was elected Lord Rector of Glasgow University. He had heavy responsibilities during the negotiations with the Transvaal in 1898-99, and by some opponents was blamed for faults of tact and temper in the 'new diplomacy.' He is LL.D. of Cambridge and D.C.L. of Oxford.
Collections of his speeches (one with an introduction by Mr Lucy) have been published; and see the Lives of him by S. H. Jeyes ('Public Men' series, 1896) and Miss Murrell Morris (1900).