Chamberlain, (Arthur) Neville

b. 1869; d. 1940

British statesman, born in Birmingham, younger son of Joseph Chamberlain, by his second wife, Florence Kenrick. He was educated at Rugby and at Mason College, Birmingham (later Birmingham University) and then went to the Bahamas to manage his father's sisal plantation. In 1897 he returned to be a manufacturer in Birmingham, entered Birmingham City Council in 1911, and was lord mayor 1915-16. In December 1918 he was elected Conservative MP for the Ladywood division of Birmingham and was a privy councillor and postmaster general in 1922 in Bonar Law's ministry and paymaster general in 1923.

When Baldwin replaced Bonar Law as prime minister, Chamberlain entered the Cabinet as minister of health. Only a few months later he became chancellor of the Exchequer. In 1924, when the Conservatives again returned to power, Chamberlain preferred to be minister of health and made that ministry a leading department of state. He became chancellor of the Exchequer again in the 1931 National Government, in succession to Snowden and while in office introduced, in 1932, a general tariff, ended the economy cuts of 1934-35, began rearmament, and converted part of the war loan.

In 1937 he succeeded Baldwin as prime minister; his term of office was dominated by Hitler's aggression in Europe which Chamberlain sought to deal with through that policy of appeasement with which his name is always associated. Comparatively inexperienced in foreign affairs, Chamberlain nevertheless played a much larger part in diplomatic negotiations than was usual for a premier. In 1938 he came into conflict with his foreign secretary, Anthony Eden, over his decision to negotiate an agreement with Italy, Eden resigned. Chamberlain insisted on a rigidly non-interventionist attitude towards Spain and early in 1939 visited Mussolini.

When, in 1938, war with Germany seemed inevitable over the Sudeten issue, Chamberlain took the then unprecedented step of going by plane to Berchtesgaden to see Hitler. Chamberlain acceded to Hitler's damaging demands and carried both the British and French Cabinets with him. At a second meeting with Hitler at Godesberg, Hitler raised his price and war seemed imminent; but, on the intervention of Mussolini, Chamberlain and Hitler were once again brought together - this time at the notorious Munich four-power meeting (Munich Pact) which in effect threw the Czechs overboard. On his return to Britain Chamberlain announced that he had 'brought back peace with honour'. He was acclaimed everywhere, and though disillusionment soon followed with the increasingly bellicose tone of German political utterances, Chamberlain continued to point to his various international agreements as vindication of his policy of appeasement. However, when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia in March 1939, Chamberlain abandoned appeasement and guaranteed British aid against similar attacks. It is true to say that Chamberlain's part in the Munich Pact gave Britain a year in which to make good its defences; but in fact his rearmament programme did not keep pace with that of Germany, and on 1 September 1939 Germany's lead in air strength was much greater than at the time of Munich.

Himself a quick and business like administrator, he neither filled ministerial posts with able ministers nor had the power to drive others. Britain declared war on Germany on 3 September, after Germany had invaded Poland; and Chamberlain announced the fact in a moving and historic broadcast. His government did not survive much longer. The failure of the Allied campaign in Norway infuriated the whole country, and in the debate in the Commons of 6-8 May his vote of confidence was passed by only 281 to 200, a great many government supporters abstaining. Chamberlain then tried to meet the rising storm by reshuffling his Cabinet, but Labour refused to join any government under him and he resigned on 10 May, the day when the Germans invaded the Low Countries. As lord president of the council in the Churchill government he whole- heartedly supported the new prime minister's resolve to continue the war come what might, bur died later the same year.

© JM Dent/Historybookshop.com