Editing Joseph Chamberlain (section)

===Marriages and children===
[[File:Mary Crowninshield Endicott Chamberlain A21433.jpg|thumb|upright|Chamberlain's third wife, Mary, by [[John Singer Sargent]], 1902]]
In July 1861 Chamberlain married Harriet Kenrick, the daughter of [[holloware]] manufacturer Archibald Kenrick, of Berrow Court, [[Edgbaston]], [[Birmingham]];{{sfn|Dilks|1984|p=9}}{{sfn|Ward|2015|p=3}} they had met the previous year. Their daughter, [[Beatrice Chamberlain]], was born in May 1862.<ref name=":0">{{Cite ODNB|url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-101358|title=Chamberlain, Beatrice Mary (1862–1918), educationist and political organizer {{!}} Oxford Dictionary of National Biography|language=en|doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/101358|access-date=2019-06-20|year=2013|last1=Marsh|first1=Peter T.}}</ref> Harriet, who had had a premonition that she would die in childbirth, became ill two days after the birth of their son, [[Austen Chamberlain|Austen]], in October 1863, and died three days later. Chamberlain devoted himself to business while the children were brought up by their maternal grandparents.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=17–19}}

In 1868 Chamberlain married Harriet's cousin Florence Kenrick, daughter of Timothy Kenrick.

Chamberlain and Florence had four children: the future Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain|Neville]] in 1869, [[Ida Chamberlain|Ida]] in 1870, [[Hilda Chamberlain|Hilda]] in 1871 and Ethel in 1873. The teaching of these four children was taken on by their elder half sister, Beatrice, who was destined to make her mark as an educationalist.<ref name=":0" /> On 13 February 1875 Florence gave birth to their fifth child, but she and the child died within a day.<ref name=":0" /> Though a [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] during his lifetime, the experiences Chamberlain endured with losing both wives in childbirth resulted in him losing personal faith, rejecting religious creeds and not requiring religious adherence of any of his children.<ref>{{cite web
| last =Ruston
| first =Alan
| title =Neville Chamberlain
| publisher =Unitarian Universalist Historical Society
| url =http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/nevillechamberlain.html
| access-date =2022-01-28
| archive-date =2007-02-21
| archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20070221213453/http://www.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/nevillechamberlain.html
| url-status =dead
}}</ref>

Chamberlain met his third wife, Mary Crowninshield Endicott, the 23-year-old daughter of [[United States Secretary of War]] [[William Crowninshield Endicott]], while leading a British delegation to Washington, D.C., to resolve the [[Cod fishing in Newfoundland|Newfoundland fisheries]] dispute in 1887. He described her as "one of the brightest and most intelligent girls I have yet met." Before he left the United States in March 1888, Chamberlain proposed, and they married at St John's Episcopal Church in New York City, wearing white violets rather than Chamberlain's trademark orchid. Mary became a faithful supporter of his political ambitions and eased his acceptance into upper-class society in the second half of his career. They had no children.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=289–312}}{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=319–21}} She survived Chamberlain, to later marry, in 1916, Anglican clergyman [[William Hartley Carnegie]] (1859&ndash;1936).<ref>{{cite news |title=Mrs. Chamberlain Weds. Widow of Colonial Secretary. Bride of Rev. W. H. Carnegie |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E5DB1E3FE233A25757C0A96E9C946796D6CF |newspaper=[[New York Times]] |date=4 August 1916 |access-date=2014-08-10 }}</ref>