Early Life, Business Career and Marriage
Chamberlain was born in Camberwell in London to a successful shoemaker and manufacturer, also named Joseph (1796–1874), and his wife Caroline Harben, daughter of Henry Harben. He was educated at University College School (then still in Euston) between 1850 and 1852, excelling academically and gaining prizes in French and mathematics.
The elder Chamberlain was not able to provide advanced education for all his children, and at the age of 16 Joseph was apprenticed to the Worshipful Company of Cordwainers and worked for the family business making quality leather shoes. At 18 he joined his uncle's screwmaking business, Nettlefolds (later part of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds) of Birmingham, in which his father had invested. The company became known as Nettlefold and Chamberlain when Chamberlain became a partner with Joseph Nettlefold. During the business's most prosperous period, it produced approximately two-thirds of all metal screws made in England, and by the time of Chamberlain's retirement from business in 1874 it was exporting to the USA, Europe, India, Japan, Canada and Australia.
Chamberlain married Harriet Kenrick, the daughter of Archibald Kenrick, member of a Unitarian family from Birmingham who originally occupied Wynn Hall in Ruabon, Wrexham, Wales, in July 1861 (they had met the previous year). Their daughter Beatrice was born in May 1862. Harriet, who had had a premonition that she would die in childbirth, became ill two days after the birth of their son Joseph Austen in October 1863, and died three days later. Chamberlain devoted himself to business, while raising Beatrice and Austen with the Kenrick parents-in-law.
In 1868, Chamberlain married for the second time, to Harriet's cousin, Florence Kenrick, daughter of Timothy Kenrick. The couple had four children: Arthur Neville in 1869, Ida in 1870, Hilda in 1871, and Ethel in 1873. On 13 February 1875, Florence gave birth to their fifth child, but she and the child died within a day.
Florence's sister, Louisa, married Joseph's brother, Arthur Chamberlain; their granddaughter was the author Elizabeth Longford and their great-granddaughter is the Labour politician Harriet Harman.
In 1888 Chamberlain married for the third time in Washington, DC. His bride was Mary Crowninshield Endicott, daughter of the US Secretary of War, William Crowninshield Endicott.
Read more about this topic: Joseph Chamberlain
Famous quotes containing the words early, business, career and/or marriage:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our shores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of God, find the earth below not in unison with these,—but are hindered from action by the disgust which the principles on which business is managed inspire, and turn drudges, or die of disgust,—some of them suicides.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I began my editorial career with the presidency of Mr. Adams, and my principal object was to render his administration all the assistance in my power. I flattered myself with the hope of accompanying him through [his] voyage, and of partaking in a trifling degree, of the glory of the enterprise; but he suddenly tacked about, and I could follow him no longer. I therefore waited for the first opportunity to haul down my sails.”
—William Cobbett (1762–1835)
“And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)