Neville Chamberlain
Arthur Neville Chamberlain was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940 and Leader of the Conservative Party from May 1937 to October 1940. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938, ceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Following the invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, which marked the beginning of World War II, Chamberlain announced the declaration of war on Germany two days later and led the United Kingdom through the first eight months of the war until his resignation as prime minister on 10 May 1940.
After working in business and local government, and after a short spell as Director of National Service in 1916 and 1917, Chamberlain followed his father Joseph Chamberlain and elder half-brother Austen Chamberlain in becoming a Member of Parliament in the 1918 general election for the new Birmingham Ladywood division at the age of 49. He declined a junior ministerial position, remaining a backbencher until 1922. He was rapidly promoted in 1923 to Minister of Health and then Chancellor of the Exchequer. After a short-lived Labour-led government, he returned as Minister of Health, introducing a range of reform measures from 1924 to 1929. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government in 1931.
Chamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin as prime minister on 28 May 1937. His premiership was dominated by the question of policy towards an increasingly aggressive Germany, and his actions at Munich were widely popular among the British at the time. In response to Hitler's continued aggression, Chamberlain pledged the United Kingdom to defend Poland's independence if the latter were attacked, an alliance that brought his country into declaring war on Germany after it invaded Poland, which resulted in the "Phoney War", but not in any substantial assistance to Poland's fight against the aggression. The failure of Allied forces to prevent the German invasion of Norway caused the House of Commons to hold the Norway Debate in May 1940. Chamberlain's conduct of the war was heavily criticised by members of all parties and, in a vote of confidence, his government's majority was greatly reduced. Accepting that a national government supported by all the main parties was essential, Chamberlain resigned the premiership because the Labour and Liberal parties would not serve under his leadership. Although he still led the Conservative Party, he was succeeded as prime minister by his colleague Winston Churchill. Until ill health forced him to resign on 22 September 1940, Chamberlain was an important member of the war cabinet as Lord President of the Council, heading the government in Churchill's absence. His support for Churchill proved vital during the May 1940 war cabinet crisis. Chamberlain died aged 71 on 9 November of cancer, six months after leaving the premiership.
Chamberlain's reputation remains controversial among historians, the initial high regard for him being entirely eroded by books such as Guilty Men, published in July 1940, which blamed Chamberlain and his associates for the Munich accord and for allegedly failing to prepare the country for war. Most historians in the generation following Chamberlain's death held similar views, led by Churchill in The Gathering Storm. Some later historians have taken a more favourable perspective of Chamberlain and his policies, citing government papers released under the thirty-year rule and arguing that going to war with Germany in 1938 would have been disastrous as the UK was unprepared. Nonetheless, Chamberlain is still unfavourably ranked amongst British prime ministers.
Early life and political career (1869–1918)
Childhood and businessman
Arthur Neville Chamberlain was born on 18 March 1869 at a house called Southbourne in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham. He was the only son of the second marriage of Joseph Chamberlain, who later became Mayor of Birmingham and a Cabinet minister. His mother was Florence Kenrick, a cousin of William Kenrick MP; she died when he was a small boy. Joseph Chamberlain had had another son, Austen Chamberlain, by his first marriage. The Chamberlain family were Unitarian, though Joseph lost personal religious faith by the time Neville was six years old and never required religious adherence of his children. Neville, who disliked attending worship services of any kind and showed no interest in organised religion, described himself as a Unitarian with no stated faith and also a "reverent agnostic".Neville Chamberlain was educated at home by his elder sister Beatrice Chamberlain and later at Rugby School. Joseph Chamberlain then sent Neville to Mason College, now the University of Birmingham. Neville Chamberlain had little interest in his studies there, and in 1889 his father apprenticed him to a firm of accountants. Within six months he became a salaried employee. In an effort to recoup diminished family fortunes, Joseph Chamberlain sent his younger son to establish a sisal plantation on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Neville Chamberlain spent six years there but the plantation was a failure, and Joseph Chamberlain lost £50,000.
On his return to England, Neville Chamberlain entered business, purchasing Hoskins & Company, a manufacturer of metal ship berths. Chamberlain served as managing director of Hoskins for 17 years during which time the company prospered. He also involved himself in civic activities in Birmingham. In 1906, as Governor of Birmingham General Hospital, and along with "no more than fifteen" other dignitaries, Chamberlain became a founding member of the national United Hospitals Committee of the British Medical Association.
At forty, Chamberlain was expecting to remain a bachelor, but in 1910 he fell in love with Anne Cole, a recent connection by marriage, and married her the following year. They met through his Aunt Lilian, the Canadian-born widow of Joseph Chamberlain's brother Herbert, who in 1907 had married Anne Cole's uncle Alfred Clayton Cole, a director of the Bank of England.
She encouraged and supported his entry into local politics and was to be his constant companion, helper, and trusted colleague, fully sharing his interests in housing and other political and social activities after his election as an MP. The couple had a son and a daughter.
Entry into politics
Chamberlain initially showed little interest in politics, though his father and half-brother were in Parliament. During the "Khaki election" of 1900 he made speeches in support of Joseph Chamberlain's Liberal Unionists. The Liberal Unionists were allied with the Conservatives and later merged with them under the name "Unionist Party", which in 1925 became known as the "Conservative and Unionist Party". In 1911, Neville Chamberlain successfully stood as a Liberal Unionist for Birmingham City Council for the All Saints' Ward, located within his father's parliamentary constituency.File:Hughes and Chamberlain - crop.jpg|thumb|right|Chamberlain as Lord Mayor of Birmingham in May 1916, alongside Prime Minister Billy Hughes of Australia
Chamberlain was made chairman of the Town Planning Committee. Under his direction, Birmingham soon adopted one of the first town planning schemes in Britain. The start of the First World War in 1914 prevented implementation of his plans. In 1915, Chamberlain became Lord Mayor of Birmingham. Apart from his father Joseph, five of Chamberlain's uncles had also attained the chief Birmingham civic dignity: they were Joseph's brother Richard Chamberlain, William and George Kenrick, Charles Beale, who had been four times Lord Mayor, and Thomas Martineau. As a lord mayor in wartime, Chamberlain had a huge burden of work and he insisted that his councillors and officials work equally hard. He halved the lord mayor's expense allowance and cut back on the number of civic functions expected of the incumbent. In 1915, Chamberlain was appointed a member of the Central Control Board on liquor traffic.
In December 1916, Prime Minister David Lloyd George offered Chamberlain the new position of Director of National Service, with responsibility for co-ordinating conscription and ensuring that essential war industries were able to function with sufficient workforces. His tenure was marked by conflict with Lloyd George; in August 1917, having received little support from the Prime Minister, Chamberlain resigned. The relationship between Chamberlain and Lloyd George would, thereafter, be one of mutual hatred.
Chamberlain decided to stand for the House of Commons, and was adopted as Unionist candidate for Birmingham Ladywood. After the war ended, a general election was called almost immediately. The campaign in this constituency was notable because his Liberal Party opponent was Margery Corbett Ashby, one of the seventeen women who stood for Parliament at the first election at which women were eligible to do so. Chamberlain reacted to this intervention by being one of the few male candidates to specifically target women voters deploying his wife, issuing a special leaflet headed "A word to the Ladies" and holding two meetings in the afternoon. Chamberlain was elected with almost 70% of the vote and a majority of 6,833. He was 49 years old, which was at the time the greatest age at which any future prime minister had first been elected to the Commons.
MP and minister (1919–1931)
Rise from the backbench
Chamberlain threw himself into parliamentary work, begrudging the times when he was unable to attend debates and spending much time on committee work. He was chairman of the national Unhealthy Areas Committee and in that role, had visited the slums of London, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Cardiff. Consequently, in March 1920, Bonar Law offered him a junior post at the Ministry of Health on behalf of the Prime Minister, but Chamberlain was unwilling to serve under Lloyd George and was offered no further posts during Lloyd George's premiership. When Law resigned as party leader, Austen Chamberlain took his place as head of the Unionists in Parliament. Unionist leaders were willing to fight the 1922 election in coalition with the Lloyd George National Liberals, but on 19 October, Unionist MPs held a meeting at which they voted to fight the election as a single party. Lloyd George resigned, as did Austen Chamberlain, and Law was recalled from retirement to lead the Unionists as prime minister.Many high-ranking Unionists refused to serve under Law to the benefit of Chamberlain, who rose over the course of ten months from backbencher to Chancellor of the Exchequer. Law initially appointed Chamberlain Postmaster General and Chamberlain was sworn of the Privy Council. When Arthur Griffith-Boscawen, the Minister of Health, lost his seat in the 1922 election and was defeated in a by-election in March 1923 by future home secretary James Chuter Ede, Law offered the position to Chamberlain. Two months later, Law was diagnosed with advanced, terminal throat cancer. He immediately resigned and was replaced by Chancellor of the Exchequer Stanley Baldwin. In August 1923, Baldwin promoted Chamberlain to the position of Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Chamberlain served only five months in the office before the Conservatives were defeated at the 1923 general election. Ramsay MacDonald became the first-ever Labour prime minister, but his government fell within months, necessitating another general election. By a margin of only 77 votes, Chamberlain narrowly defeated the Labour candidate, Oswald Mosley, who later led the British Union of Fascists. Believing he would lose if he stood again in Birmingham Ladywood, Chamberlain arranged to be adopted for Birmingham Edgbaston, the district of the city where he was born and which was a much safer seat, which he would hold for the rest of his life. The Unionists won the election, but Chamberlain declined to serve again as chancellor, preferring his former position as Minister of Health.
Within two weeks of his appointment as Minister of Health, Chamberlain 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 sought the abolition of the elected Poor Law Boards of Guardians which administered relief—and which in some areas were responsible for rates. Many of the boards were controlled by Labour, and such boards had defied the government by distributing relief funds to the able-bodied unemployed. In 1929, Chamberlain initiated the Local Government Act 1929 to abolish the Poor Law boards entirely. Chamberlain spoke in the Commons for two and a half hours on the second reading of the bill, and when he concluded he was applauded by all parties. The bill was passed into law.
Though Chamberlain struck a conciliatory note during the 1926 General Strike, in general he had poor relations with the Labour opposition. Future Labour prime minister Clement Attlee complained that Chamberlain "always treated us like dirt," and in April 1927 Chamberlain wrote: "More and more do I feel an utter contempt for their lamentable stupidity." His poor relations with the Labour Party later played a major part in his downfall as prime minister.