Joseph Chamberlain

Joseph Chamberlain [' ʧeɪmbəlɪn ] ( born July 8, 1836 in London, † July 2, 1914 ) was an influential British statesman of the 19th century. He was the father of the late British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and the Foreign Minister and Nobel Peace Austen Chamberlain.

Chamberlain initially joined in the commercial business of his father in Birmingham, but at the same time took an active part in political life. So in 1868 he was chairman of the National Education Association and in 1873 the council of Birmingham. From 1873 to 1876 he was mayor of the city of Birmingham. His reforms of the municipal health services, the demolition of slums, his massive Promote a general compulsory education, the creation of conditions for the establishment of the University of Birmingham ( 1900) and the construction of a gas and water supply under municipal control had an impact far beyond the boundaries of the city addition and led to fundamental changes in the whole UK local order. 1876 ​​Chamberlain was elected to the House. There he became one of the most important figures of the Liberal quickly. In the party he led the significant political left development of these years with demands for social, some even socialist reforms. The Liberals developed under Chamberlain of a parliamentary and a mass party functionary. Under William Ewart Gladstone, Chamberlain was from 1880 to 1885 Minister of Commerce. In 1886 he chaired the local government office.

Chamberlain was an opponent of Irish self-government. When Gladstone pleaded for Home Rule policy, Chamberlain resigned in March 1886 by his post. He was the leader of the Liberal Unionists, who seceded from the Liberal Party and this weakened sustained by withdrew a large part of the workers from the camp of the "old " liberals. Chamberlain leaned one liberalunionistischen House fraction close to the Conservatives. In the long run merged the two parties, which the Conservatives increasingly transformed themselves with the People's Party. 1892 Chamberlain became the leader of the Liberal Unionists in the House of Commons. On April 25, 1895, he took over Salisbury under the Colonial Office ( Secretary of State for the Colonies ). In this office he tried to establish closer trade relations between the UK and the "white" colonies of settlement and established for a Zollverein. At the same time he was one of the most outspoken representative of the British Imperial policy, which he promoted the outbreak of the Boer War among others. The statesman expressed his belief in the racist British supremacism as often as clearly.

From an address Chamberlain, 1887:

" When I traveled on the way to the United States by England, and then again, when I crossed the borders of the Dominion (of Canada ), as coined me with every step a thought that is written indelibly on the face of this vast country is: the idea of the size and importance of the skill, which is the Anglo-Saxon race reserved for this proud, persistent, existing on its right and determined race that can transform any change of climate or living conditions, and that is determined infallible, the to be dominant race in the future history and civilization of the world. [ ... ] We are all the same breed and the same blood ... "

Chamberlain's efforts to close Anglo-American relations and an alliance with Germany (until the failure of the negotiations in 1901 ) and its preparatory work for the Entente Cordiale with France ended the splendid isolation, the self-imposed international isolation of Great Britain. In September 1903, Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet in order to pursue his ideas without hindrance can.

In 1906 he had to give up work after a stroke. He died on July 2, 1914 in London; He was buried on the Keyhill Cemetery in his hometown of Birmingham.