Editing Joseph Chamberlain (section)

== Early political career ==
=== Calls for reform ===
Chamberlain became involved in Liberal politics, influenced by the strong radical and liberal traditions among Birmingham shoemakers and the long tradition of social action in [[Chamberlain's Unitarian church]].<ref name="chamberlainhoc">Tristram Hunt ''Building Jerusalem: The Rise and Fall of the Victorian City'', London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson pp 232–265, 2004</ref> There was pressure to redistribute parliamentary seats to cities and to enfranchise a greater proportion of urban men. In 1866, [[John Russell, 1st Earl Russell|Earl Russell]]'s [[Liberal Party (UK)|Liberal]] administration submitted a Reform Bill to create 400,000 new voters, but the bill was opposed by the "[[Adullamite]]" Liberals for disrupting the social order, and criticised by Radicals for not conceding the secret ballot or household suffrage. The bill was defeated and the government fell. Chamberlain was one of the 250,000, including the mayor, who marched for Reform in Birmingham on 27 August 1866; he recalled that "men poured into the hall, black as they were from the factories...the people were packed together like herrings" to listen to a speech by [[John Bright]]. [[Lord Derby]]'s [[Third Derby–Disraeli ministry|minority Conservative administration]] passed a [[Second Reform Act 1867|Reform Act in 1867]], nearly doubling the electorate from 1,430,000 to 2,470,000.

The Liberal Party won the [[1868 United Kingdom general election|1868 election]]. Chamberlain was active in the election campaign, praising Bright and [[George Dixon (MP)|George Dixon]], a Birmingham MP. Chamberlain was also influential in the local campaign in support of the [[Irish Church Act 1869|Irish Disestablishment]] bill. In the autumn of 1869, a deputation headed by [[William Harris (Birmingham Liberal)|William Harris]] invited him to stand for the [[Birmingham City Council|Town Council]]; and in November he was elected to represent St. Paul's Ward.{{sfn|Garvin|Amery|1932|p=100|loc=vol. 1}}

Chamberlain and [[Jesse Collings]] had been among the founders of the Birmingham Education League in 1867, which noted that of about 4.25 million children of school age, 2 million children, mostly in urban areas, did not attend school, with a further 1 million in uninspected schools. The government's aid to [[Church of England]] schools offended [[Nonconformist (Protestantism)|Nonconformist]] opinion. Chamberlain favoured free, secular, compulsory education, stating that "it is as much the duty of the State to see that the children are educated as to see that they are fed", and attributing the success of the US and [[Prussia]] to public education. The Birmingham Education League evolved into the [[National Education League]], which held its first Conference in Birmingham in 1869 and proposed a school system funded by local [[Rates (tax)|rates]] and government grants, managed by local authorities subject to government inspection. By 1870, the League had more than one hundred branches, mostly in cities and peopled largely by men of trades unions and working men's organisations.

[[William Edward Forster]], vice-president of the Committee of Council on Education, proposed an [[Elementary Education Act 1870|Elementary Education Bill]] in January 1870.<ref>{{cite journal |first=Walter H. G. |last=Armytage |title=The 1870 education act |journal=British Journal of Educational Studies |volume=18 |issue=2 |year=1970 |pages=121–33 |doi=10.1080/00071005.1970.9973277 }}</ref> Nonconformists opposed the proposal to fund church schools as part of the national educational system through the rates. The NEL was angered by the absence of school commissions or of free, compulsory education. Chamberlain arranged for a delegation of 400 branch members and 46 MPs to visit the prime minister [[William Ewart Gladstone]] at [[10 Downing Street]] on 9 March 1870, the first time the two men had met. Chamberlain impressed the Prime Minister with his lucid speech, and during the bill's second reading Gladstone agreed to make amendments that removed church schools from rate-payer control and granted them funding. Liberal MPs, exasperated at the compromises in the legislation, voted against the government, and the bill passed the House of Commons with support from the Conservatives. Chamberlain campaigned against the Act, and especially Clause 25, which gave [[School board (England & Wales)|school boards]] of England and Wales the power to pay the fees of poor children at voluntary schools, theoretically allowing them to fund church schools. The Education League stood in several by-elections against Liberal candidates who refused to support the repeal of Clause 25. In 1873, a Liberal majority was elected to the Birmingham School Board, with Chamberlain as chairman. Eventually, a compromise was reached with the church component of the school board agreeing to make payments from rate-payer's money only to schools associated with industrial education.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=34–55}}

Chamberlain espoused enfranchisement of rural workers and a lower cost of land. In an article written for the ''Fortnightly Review'', he coined the slogan of the "Four F's: Free Church, Free Schools, Free Land and Free Labour". In another article, "The Liberal Party and its Leaders", Chamberlain criticised Gladstone's leadership and advocated a more Radical direction for the party.

=== Mayor of Birmingham ===
In November 1873 the Liberal Party swept the municipal elections and Chamberlain was elected mayor of Birmingham. The Conservatives had denounced his Radicalism and called him a "monopoliser and a dictator" while the Liberals had campaigned against their [[High church]] Tory opponents with the slogan "The People above the Priests". The city's municipal administration was notably lax with regards to public works and many urban dwellers lived in conditions of great poverty. As mayor, Chamberlain promoted many civic improvements, promising the city would be "parked, paved, assized, marketed, gas & watered and 'improved'".<ref>{{cite book|author=Richard N. Kelly and John Cantrell|title=Modern British Statesmen, 1867–1945|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=09DoAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA83|year=1997|publisher=Manchester UP|page=83|isbn=9780719050800}}</ref>

The [[Birmingham Gas Light and Coke Company]] and the [[Birmingham and Staffordshire Gas Light Company]] were locked in constant competition, in which the city's streets were continually dug up to lay mains. Chamberlain forcibly purchased the two companies on behalf of the borough for £1,953,050, even offering to purchase the companies himself if the ratepayers refused. In its first year of operations the new municipal gas scheme made a profit of £34,000.

The city's water supply was considered a danger to public health – approximately half of the city's population was dependent on well water, much of which was polluted by sewage. Piped water was supplied on only three days per week, compelling the use of well water and water carts for the rest of the week. Deploring the rising death rate from contagious diseases in the poorest parts of the city, in January 1876 Chamberlain forcibly purchased Birmingham's waterworks for a combined sum of £1,350,000, creating [[Birmingham Corporation Water Department]], having declared to a House of Commons Committee that "We have not the slightest intention of making profit... We shall get our profit indirectly in the comfort of the town and in the health of the inhabitants.” Despite this noticeable executive action, Chamberlain was mistrustful of central authority and bureaucracy, preferring to give local communities the responsibility to act on their own initiative.

In July 1875 Chamberlain tabled an improvement plan involving [[Slum clearance in the United Kingdom|slum clearance]] in Birmingham's city centre. Chamberlain had been consulted by the [[Home Secretary]], [[Richard Assheton Cross]], during the preparation of the [[Artisans' and Labourers' Dwellings Improvement Act 1875]], during [[Benjamin Disraeli|Disraeli's]] social improvement programme. Chamberlain bought 50 acres (200,000&nbsp;m<sup>2</sup>) of property to build a new road, ([[Corporation Street, Birmingham|Corporation Street]]), through Birmingham's overcrowded slums. Overriding the protests of local landlords and the commissioner of the Local Government Board's inquiry into the scheme, Chamberlain gained the endorsement of the [[President of the Local Government Board]], [[George Sclater-Booth]]. Chamberlain raised the funds for the programme, contributing £10,000 himself. However the Improvement Committee concluded that it would be too expensive to transfer slum-dwellers to municipally built accommodation, and so the land was leased as a business proposition on a 75-year lease. Slum dwellers were eventually rehoused in the suburbs and the scheme cost local government £300,000. The death rate in Corporation Street decreased dramatically – from approximately 53 per 1,000 between 1873 and 1875 to 21 per 1,000 between 1879 and 1881.

During Chamberlain's tenure of office, public and private money was used to construct libraries, municipal swimming pools and schools. [[Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery]] was enlarged and a number of new parks were opened. Construction of the [[Council House, Birmingham|Council House]] was begun, while the [[Victoria Law Courts]] were built on Corporation Street.{{sfn|Marsh|1994|pp=77–102}}

The mayoralty helped make Chamberlain a national as well as local figure, with contemporaries commenting upon his youthfulness and dress, including "a black velvet coat, jaunty eyeglass in eye, red neck-tie drawn through a ring". His contribution to the city's improvement earned Chamberlain the allegiance of the so-called Birmingham [[Caucus#United Kingdom|caucus]] for the rest of his public career.

His biographer states:
:Early in his political career, Chamberlain constructed arguably his greatest and most enduring accomplishment, a model of "gas-and-water" or municipal socialism widely admired in the industrial world. At his ceaseless urging, Birmingham embarked on an improvement scheme to tear down its central slums and replace them with healthy housing and commercial thoroughfares, both to ventilate the town and to attract business. This scheme, however, strained the financial resources of the town and undermined the consensus in favour of reform.{{sfn|Marsh|2004}}