Sir Austen Chamberlain (1863-1937)
British Statesman
The Right Honourable Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain, KG, BA, MA, MP

The eldest son of Joseph Chamberlain, a prominent Victorian statesman, and half-brother of Neville Chamberlain, later prime minister, Birmingham-born Austen was always destined for politics. Educated at Rugby and at Trinity College, Cambridge, he spent some time studying in France (at the École des Sciences Politiques in Paris, where he was a contemporary of Clemenceau) and Germany before being elected to Parliament as a Conservative in 1888. Serving as chancellor of the Exchequer from 1903 to 1905, he succeeded his father in the Birmingham West seat in 1914 and holds it for the rest of his life. From 1915 to 1917, he served as secretary of state for India and was a member of the War Cabinet, and in January 1919 was again appointed chancellor of the Exchequer, retaining the post until 1 April 1921.

After Bonar Law’s resignation in March 1921, Chamberlain is elected leader of the Conservative Party. He is one of the British representatives at the conferences with Sinn Féin from October to December 1921 and signs the treaty on 6 December. As the Conservative Party increasingly moves away from the Coalition, he remains loyal to Lloyd George. At the meeting to discuss the issue at the Carlton Club on 19 October 1922, he recommends that the Coalition goes to the country in a general election, but when the motion to end the Coalition is carried by 187 votes to 87 he resigns as Tory leader. He does not hold office again until the Conservatives return to power following the Labour hiatus in November 1924, by which time the party has been reunited, when he accepts the post of foreign secretary, which he holds until the Conservative fall in June 1929. It is a difficult time for Britain overseas, with the Ruhr Crisis in full swing, and one of his first acts is to denounce the Labour-approved Protocol of Geneva, which has been greeted with hostility throughout the Empire. He initiates the negotiations which lead to the signing of the Locarno Pact on 16 October 1925 and the Treaty of Locarno on 1 December. For this achievement, which he has largely orchestrated, the king creates him a Knight of the Garter (KG), an extremely rare honour for a commoner. Chamberlain regularly attends meetings of the League of Nations and labours to stabilise somewhat touchy Anglo-Egyptian relations. In January 1927, he is severely criticised for not doing anything in response to the Chinese capture of the British concession at Hankow, and sends a strong force to Shanghai to prevent the situation being repeated there. He is ill for much of 1928 and is unable to attend the signing of the Kellogg Pact in Paris on 27 August. He is accused of being the mouthpiece of the Quai d’Orsay (the French Foreign Ministry) and the dupe of Gustav Stresemann, the German foreign minister. Neither accusation is really true, but they do lead to him holding his seat with a majority of only 43 votes in the 1929 general election.

A realist, Chamberlain never does anything without careful thought and preparation. Scholarly and well-read, he loves nature and the countryside and has a particularly wide knowledge of flowers. He also loves travel and sight-seeing, and is a great afficionado of art. He is short-sighted (actually, not metaphorically!), always immaculate in appearance, and can appear austere, but in reality is a sociable man who loves company (and has a wide circle of friends from all over the world) and is a good talker and storyteller, with an excellent memory. Even-tempered and generous, he is always prepared to admit his mistakes. A Francophile, he speaks fluent French and reasonable German. From 1925 to 1928, he serves as lord rector of Glasgow University. He has been happily married to Ivy Dundas (created GBE in 1922) since 1906, and they have two sons and a daughter. They live at 2 Morpeth Mansions, London SW1, and also have a country home at Twitts Ghyll, Five Ashes, Sussex. Chamberlain is a member of the Carlton and United University Clubs.