John Henry Chamberlain - Life

Life

Chamberlain was born in Leicester on June 21, 1831, son of a Baptist minister, and received his architectural training with a local practice. After further experience in London and a period travelling in Italy he moved to Birmingham in 1853. He designed two buildings for John Eld, the business partner of his uncle. The first of these to be completed, Eld's house at 12 Ampton Road, Edgbaston (1855) survives to this day and already shows many of the features that would characterise much of Chamberlain's later work: a gothic structure in polychromatic brick with finely crafted decoration inspired by natural and organic forms. The shop in Union Street for Eld & Chamberlain has been demolished.

Although Chamberlain continued to build in both Leicester and Birmingham (where he built the Edgbaston Waterworks whose tower would inspire the young J. R. R. Tolkien) his career failed to take off and in 1864 he considered moving to New Zealand after being offered a commission to design Christchurch Cathedral.

Instead he went into partnership with William Martin who was already established as the city's public works architect, with Chamberlain taking the lead in design matters and Martin seeing to the more practical side of running an architectural practice.

Chamberlain's belief in the value of individual craftsmanship and patterns inspired by nature (characteristic of the arts and crafts movement) together with his sense of urbanism and the civilising potential of cities (that was much less typical of a movement which generally abhorred the industrial revolution and viewed large cities as dehumanising) chimed perfectly with the progressive non-conformist ideology of Birmingham's ruling liberals, who sought to transform industrial Birmingham into a cultural centre to rival the great European capitals.

Together with Martin's contacts and business acumen this saw the partnership win a string of commissions to design civic structures throughout Birmingham, including libraries, hospitals, public utilities, major projects such as the cutting of Corporation Street and culminating in 1871 with a commission to design no fewer than 41 board schools in response to the Elementary Education Act 1870. Martin and Chamberlain's civic structures saw the introduction of exceptionally high standards of design and craftsmanship into even the most deprived areas of Birmingham and represented one of the most significant consistent sets of public buildings since Wren's City of London churches two centuries earlier.

Chamberlain also became the unofficial domestic architect to Birmingham's powerful civic leaders, designing a string of prestigious houses in upmarket districts of South Birmingham including Highbury Hall - the home of Joseph Chamberlain himself and now the official residence of Birmingham's Lord Mayor.

Chamberlain died suddenly in 1883 shortly after completing the designs for what is generally considered his finest building - the Birmingham School of Art, which was completed after his death by William Martin and his son Frederick Martin.

He is buried in Key Hill Cemetery in Birmingham's Jewellery Quarter.