43 Facts About Austen Chamberlain

Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain was a British statesman, son of Joseph Chamberlain and older half-brother of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Austen Chamberlain served as Chancellor of the Exchequer and was briefly Conservative Party leader before serving as Foreign Secretary.

Austen Chamberlain again returned to office in David Lloyd George's coalition government, serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Austen Chamberlain then served as Conservative Party leader in the Commons, before resigning after the Carlton Club meeting voted to end the Lloyd George Coalition.

Austen Chamberlain last held office as First Lord of the Admiralty in 1931.

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Austen Chamberlain was one of the few MPs supporting Winston Churchill's appeals for rearmament against the German threat in the 1930s, and remained an active backbench MP until his death in 1937.

Harriet died giving birth to Austen Chamberlain, leaving his father so shaken that for almost 25 years he maintained a distance from his first-born son.

Austen Chamberlain was dominated by his elder sister and was therefore sent away to be educated first at Rugby School "to release him from her thrall", before passing on to Trinity College, Cambridge.

Austen Chamberlain made his first political address in 1884 at a meeting of the university's Political Society and was vice-president of the Cambridge Union.

From Paris, Austen Chamberlain was sent to Berlin for twelve months, to imbibe the political culture of the other great European power, Germany.

Austen Chamberlain returned to England in 1888, lured largely by the prize of a parliamentary constituency.

Austen Chamberlain was first elected to parliament as a member of his father's own Liberal Unionist Party in 1892, sitting for the seat of East Worcestershire.

Lord Salisbury retired as Prime Minister in July 1902, and the following month Chamberlain was promoted to the position of Postmaster General by the new premier, the Conservative Arthur J Balfour, who designated this a cabinet position, and appointed him to the Privy Council.

Austen Chamberlain was one of the leading candidates to succeed as Conservative leader even though he was still technically a member of the Liberal Unionist wing of the coalition .

Austen Chamberlain was opposed by Canadian-born Bonar Law, Walter Long and Irish Unionist Edward Carson.

Austen Chamberlain succeeded in persuading Long to withdraw with him in favour of Law, who was chosen by unanimous vote as a compromise candidate.

Austen Chamberlain was resolutely opposed to the dissolution of the Union with Ireland.

Pressure from the Conservative opposition, in part led by Austen Chamberlain, eventually resulted in the formation of the wartime coalition government, in 1915.

Austen Chamberlain joined the cabinet as Secretary of State for India.

Austen Chamberlain was succeeded at the Exchequer by Sir Robert Horne; it seemed that after ten years of waiting, Austen would again be given the opportunity of succeeding to the premiership.

Austen Chamberlain had previously had little regard for Lloyd George, but the opportunity of working closely with the "Welsh Wizard" gave Chamberlain a new insight into his nominal superior in the government .

Austen Chamberlain resigned the party leadership rather than act against what he believed to be his duty.

Austen Chamberlain was succeeded by Law, whose views and intentions he had predicted the evening before the vote at a private meeting.

Law formed a government shortly thereafter, but Austen Chamberlain was not given a post, but it seems that he would not have accepted a position even if he had been offered one.

Until William Hague, Austen Chamberlain had been the only Conservative overall leader in the history of the party not to become Prime Minister.

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However, Austen Chamberlain returned to government when Baldwin formed his second ministry following success in the election of October 1924, serving in the important office of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs from 1924 to 1929.

Austen Chamberlain was largely allowed a free hand by the easy-going Baldwin.

Austen Chamberlain's understanding was that if Franco-German relations improved, France would gradually abandon the Cordon sanitaire, the French alliance system in Eastern Europe between the wars.

Austen Chamberlain believed that they would peacefully hand over the territories claimed by Germany such as the Sudetenland, the Polish Corridor and the Free City of Danzig.

Austen Chamberlain was the first ordinary Knight of the Garter since Elizabethan times to die without having been made a peer.

Austen Chamberlain secured Britain's accession to the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which theoretically outlawed war as an instrument of policy.

Austen Chamberlain infamously said that Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was "a man with whom business could be done".

Austen Chamberlain briefly returned to government in 1931 as First Lord of the Admiralty in Ramsay MacDonald's first National Government, but soon retired later that year after having been forced to deal with the unfortunate Invergordon Mutiny.

Austen Chamberlain was again briefly considered in 1935 for the post of Foreign Secretary but was passed over once the crisis was over for being too old for the job.

From 1934 to 1937, Austen Chamberlain was, with Winston Churchill, Roger Keyes and Leo Amery, the most prominent voice calling for British rearmament in the face of a growing threat from Nazi Germany.

Austen Chamberlain died at the age of 73 in his London home, 24 Egerton Terrace, on 16 March 1937.

Austen Chamberlain was altogether kinder than his father, more likeable, more honourable, more high-minded and less effective.

David Dutton comments that early assessments of Austen Chamberlain's career compared him unfavourably with his father, who overshadowed his early career, and his brother, who overshadowed his later decades.

Dutton quotes with approval Leo Amery's verdict written just after Austen Chamberlain's death: 'He just missed greatness and the highest position, but his was a fine life of honourable public service'.

Austen Chamberlain could speak effectively, but was never a stirring orator.

In 1906, Austen Chamberlain married Ivy Muriel Dundas, daughter of Colonel Henry Dundas.

Austen Chamberlain's was created a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire in 1925.

Collection of archival material related to Austen Chamberlain can be found at the Cadbury Research Library, University of Birmingham.