Chamberlain, (Arthur) Neville

Chamberlain, (Arthur) Neville (b. 18 Mar. 1869, d. 9 Nov. 1940). British Prime Minister 1937–40 Born in Birmingham, the son of Joseph Chamberlain and half-brother of Austen Chamberlain. From 1890, he spent seven years unsuccessfully running his father's sisal plantation in the Bahamas. He returned to Birmingham, and was involved in business, before becoming Lord Mayor of the city in 1915. Lloyd George asked him to become Director-General of National Service in 1916, but he resigned a year later after disagreements with Lloyd George. He was elected as Conservative MP for Birmingham Ladywood in 1918 (moving to Edgbaston in 1929), became Paymaster-General under Bonar Law in 1922, and served briefly as Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1923.

A successful and efficient Minister of Health (1924–9), he reformed the Poor Law, promoted council-house building, and developed local government. Despite these reforms, his openly dismissive attitude towards the Labour Party meant that he gained few friends on the opposition benches of the House of Commons. In 1931 he was a key figure in the negotiations resulting in the formation of the National Government, and then, as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1931–7), he steered the British economy back towards prosperity, and finally introduced measures of protection unsuccessfully championed by his father for so long.

In May 1937 he succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister. His hope for a large programme of social reform was ended, however, by the prominence of international affairs and the necessity for rearmament, which had already begun. His policy of ‘appeasement’, popular at the time but later denigrated as an act of cowardice, was to accommodate the European dictators in order to avoid war, which he regarded as potentially disastrous for all, especially the British Empire. At three meetings with Hitler, at Berchtesgaden, at Godesberg, and at Munich in September 1938, he conceded Czechoslovak territory to Germany. In spite of this he did not save Czechoslovakia from German invasion in March 1939. Like many of his colleagues, he was reluctant to negotiate seriously with the Soviet Union, but did pledge military support to Poland in March 1939. When Germany invaded Poland later in the year, Chamberlain had little choice but to declare war. In May 1940, following a disaster for British forces in Norway, his own party rebelled against him and he was forced to resign in favour of Winston Churchill, whom he wholeheartedly supported until his death later in the year.

For many years, Chamberlain was vilified as being responsible for many of the policies which led to World War II. More recently, some historians have explained his policy as an understandable reaction to Britain's weakness, and to a realistic appreciation of the cost involved in another world war. Even so, it is clear that right up to August 1939 he hoped and believed in the possibility of coming to a peaceful arrangement with Hitler, at a time when the aggressive nature of Germany had been evident at least since the Anschluss.