Austen Chamberlain - Last Great Service

Last Great Service

During the period 1934 to 1937, Chamberlain was, with Winston Churchill, Roger Keyes and Leo Amery, the most prominent voice calling for British rearmament in the face of a growing threat from Nazi Germany. In addition to speaking eloquently in Parliament on the matter, he was the chairman of two Conservative parliamentary delegations in late 1936 that met with the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, to remonstrate with him about his government’s delay in rearming the British defence forces. More respected in this period than Churchill, Chamberlain became something of an icon to young Conservatives, as the last survivor of the Victorian Age of high politics.

Though he never again served in a government, Sir Austen Chamberlain survived in good health until March 1937, dying just ten weeks before his half-brother Neville Chamberlain finally became the only member of the distinguished Chamberlain dynasty to become Prime Minister.

Chamberlain died on 17 March 1937 aged 73.

His estate was probated at £45,044, a relatively modest sum for such a famous public figure. Much of his father's fortune had been lost in an attempt to grow sisal in the West Indies in the early 1890s, and unlike his younger brother Neville, Austen never went into business to make money for himself.

The personal and political papers of Sir Austen Chamberlain are housed in the Special Collections of the main library of the University of Birmingham.