Mr. Chamberlain having obtained such distinction in public life, it was
perhaps only natural that some of his brothers should be tempted or
induced to follow his shining star. Possibly they had no strong
inclination to distinguish themselves in public, and were rather pressed
to come forward on account of the influential name they bore. Anyway,
some of them did appear in various offices and capacities, but without
meaning any disrespect to them or any reflection upon their abilities, it
may perhaps be said that they found their fires so pale and ineffectual
compared with the brilliant light of their eldest brother--or it may be
that they found public work comparatively uncongenial to them--that,
most of them soon preferred to efface themselves and leave one of their
family and his son to take all the honours and have all the court cards.
Mr. Richard Chamberlain took the most prominent position, and made the
highest mark of all Mr. Chamberlain's brothers. He was Mayor of
Birmingham in the years 1879 and 1880. During his years of office he was
public-spirited and popular, and in the way of civic hospitality he made
things lively and gay. He kept the Council House warm with his
entertainments, and lavished so much money in hospitalities of one kind
or another that he made it difficult for his immediate successors to
follow in his wake, and none of them tried to do so. So far as I could
judge of his character, Mr. Richard Chamberlain did not spend his money
so freely for the sake of purchasing popularity, and certainly not for
the sake of making ostentatious displays of his wealth. He was naturally
generous and genial, and as Mayor of a large and important town he found
many ways of humouring his bent, and he did not mind paying the piper
pretty handsomely for his pleasure. As is well known, he was afterwards
M.P. for one of the Islington divisions for some years. Ill-health
however overtook him, and he died much regretted on the 2nd of April,
1899.
Another brother, Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, was a town councillor of
Birmingham for a limited period, and owing to his business capacity he
became a useful member of the Corporation. He did not apparently go into
the Council to make a long stay, or if he did he changed his mind, and
soon retired from municipal work. He has since spent his time in minding
his own business; in strengthening, mending, and making certain public
companies; in giving fatherly advice to company shareholders; and in
dispensing justice, sometimes with pertinent observations, on the local
magisterial bench.
Two other brothers, Mr. Herbert and Mr. Walter Chamberlain, have at
times been induced to take a little hand in public work, but their
efforts have been of a mild, modest, innocent character. Now, however,
they have retired into that privacy from which they so timidly emerged.
For many reasons Mr. Chamberlain's brothers were, perhaps, wise not to
bid high for public place and position in Birmingham. People are apt to
be needlessly suspicious of too much family influence in public
concerns. There is always a tendency and a readiness to inveigh against
cliques, especially family cliques. And at one time there was certainly
a disposition in some quarters to keep a jealous eye upon Joseph and his
brethren, lest they should acquire an undue amount of influence and
power. One blunt, outspoken Scotchman, I remember, expressed this
feeling in his own characteristic way by saying, "If we don't mind we
shall be having too much dom'd Chamberlain."
The Chamberlain family, however, being more or less smart, spry men,
were doubtless sharp enough to detect some inkling of this sort of
feeling, and consequently they thought it better to silence any such
cavillings by eschewing as far as they could public life, and contenting
themselves with being brothers of a big man and sharing a little
reflected glory.
Whilst mentioning Mr. Chamberlain's family I must say a word of his
brother-in-law, Mr. William Kenrick, for some years M.P. for the
Northern Division of Birmingham. Mr. Kenrick was Mayor of Birmingham in
1877, and a worthy and modest chief magistrate he made. A generous,
intelligent, public-spirited man, he has always been liberal with his
purse and his time, and has done much to further educational and
philanthropic schemes. Mr. Kenrick belongs to a class some cynical
people consider very "cliquey." It is, however, to be wished there were
more such "cliquey" people in our midst, for they are always
conspicuously at the fore in supporting by their influence and their
money every good cause which has for its object the alleviation of
suffering and the improvement of the people.
It is true that there was one important project inaugurated some few
years ago that did not enlist their sympathy. This was the Birmingham
Bishopric Scheme. But, seeing that most of the "clique" are Unitarians,
they could hardly be expected to support a proposal for the benefit of
the Established Church. It was a misfortune for that Church that the
Chamberlain party and their friends were aliens in religious matters.
Had it been otherwise the results of the proposed scheme might have been
very different. The "clique," when they do support a cause, do it with
no niggardly hand, and if it had so chanced that they had been Churchmen
instead of Unitarians, the probabilities are that by this time
Birmingham would have been in possession of a full-sized Bishop all its
own, and possibly a fine, bran-new, costly cathedral to boot.
Owing to the lack of monetary support the Birmingham Bishopric Scheme
is dead, or in such a very sound trance that it is hardly likely to
revive. At its birth it was not very strong, and its early existence was
jeopardised by conflicting ideas among its sponsors, chiefly caused by
the difficulties in the way of raising all the money required.
Birmingham, therefore, had to settle itself down and be content with a
Suffragan Bishop, at least for a time, and this, it is thought, may
prove to be a good long time.
In connection with the Birmingham Unitarians I may here, perhaps,
appropriately allude to a matter connected with the growth of our modern
city. The New Meeting House of the Unitarians in which Dr. Priestley
ministered was situated on the east side of the town, and as the
congregation was migrating westward they desired to have their place--I
won't say of worship, but their place of meeting, nearer to their homes.
Moreover, moved by the advancing spirit of the age, they wished for a
more important and ornamental looking edifice than the extremely plain,
I might say ugly, structure which their fathers had attended. Unitarians
may appear to be rather rigid and frigid, but they have an intelligent
appreciation of art and beauty.
Accordingly some forty years ago they selected a site on the west side
of the town, and erected what was then considered a handsome place of
meeting, which they called the Church of the Messiah, and which was
opened in 1862. The architect of this Church did not seem to be unduly
weighed down with Unitarian ideas. By accident or design he marked the
edifice with emblems of the Trinity, for at the very entrance there is a
large opening encircling three arches, which are suggestively
emblematical of the Three in One.
The building of this somewhat florid structure, and the move of the
Unitarian church from east to west, provoked a considerable amount of
caustic comment and humorous criticism at the time. These advanced
Unitarians were scoffed and sneered at for deserting the simple
tabernacle of their ancestors, and one which was associated with the
revered name of Dr. Priestley. They were also mocked for their greater
iniquity in selling their tabernacle to the Papists. Yes, the New
Meeting House of the Unitarians became a chapel of the Roman Catholics.
They rendered to the priests the things that were Priestley's, as they
were reminded by a facetious paper published at the time. But, however
much the Unitarians may have been chaffed and sneered at for abandoning
their old conventicle, they have lived it all down, and, if I mistake
not, Joseph and his brethren, the Kenricks, the Oslers, the Beales, and
others, now congregate in peace in their un-Unitarian-looking Church of
the Messiah.