| Level | Fonds |
| Finding Number (Click this to use the hierarchy browser to access the full catalogue) | NCLAdd |
| Title | Letters Additional of Neville Chamberlain |
| Extent | 167 items |
| Date | 1895-[1990s] |
| Description | Artificial collection of letters and other papers and artefacts of and relating to Sir (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940), statesman |
| Arrangement | This collection is catalogued at item or file level and the individual documents are numbered in a single numerical sequence which reflects the order in which they were acquired. The items in this collection are mounted in fascicules and stored in custom made boxes. |
| Access Conditions | Access to all registered researchers |
| Copyright | Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Director of Special Collections (email: special-collections@bham.ac.uk). Identification of copyright holders of unpublished material is often difficult. Special Collections will assist where possible with identifying copyright owners, but responsibility for ensuring copyright clearance rests with the user of the material. |
| Language | English |
| Finding Aids | The Online Archive Catalogue includes catalogue records of items in this collection from NCLAdd/122 onwards. A typescript handlist of NCLAdd/1-121 is available for consultation in the reading room, together with a paper copy of the electronic catalogue records. A personal names index to manuscript collections in the Special Collections Department contains entries for correspondents in this collection up to NCLAdd/121. |
| Access Status | Open |
| Administrative History | (Arthur) Neville Chamberlain was Joseph Chamberlain's younger son and half-brother of Sir Austen Chamberlain. He was educated at Rugby and Mason College, Birmingham. He was originally destined for a commercial career and, at the age of 21, was sent to direct his father's sisal-growing venture on the family estate on the island of Andros in the Bahamas. The venture failed and he returned seven years later in 1897after which he became involved in Birmingham's industrial and commercial life. In 1911 he married Anne de Vere Cole. They had two children: Dorothy was born in the year of their marriage, their son Frank two years later.
It was also in 1911, that he became active in local politics. He was elected to City Council in that year and, like his father, became Lord Mayor in 1915. During his time in local politics, he was responsible, for example, for the establishment of the Birmingham Savings Bank, the only municipal savings bank, in 1916. He was appointed director-general of national service by Lloyd George between 1916 and 1917 and in 1918 he entered national politics as firstly as Conservative MP for Ladywood and subsequently for the Edgbaston constituency. He served continuously as a Birmingham MP until his death in 1940. He held various offices during his political career, including Postmaster-General (1922); Chancellor of the Exchequer (1923-24); Minister of Health (1923, 1924-29); and Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government (1931-37). During his political career he initiated, supervised and was involved with a range of successful projects, including housing and slum clearance; the Local Government Act of 1920 which reformed the poor law; the reorganisation of Conservative Central Office; the adoption of general tariff, 1932; and, in 1934, took the chief political initiative in increasing air estimates.
He succeeded Baldwin as Prime Minister and Leader of the Conservative Party in May 1937. He is remembered particularly for his efforts to avert a war and his policy of appeasement toward the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and German Nazi Adolf Hitler. The dramatic events of 1938-39, including the German invasion of Austria and Czechoslovakia and the negotiation of the Munich Agreement with Hitler, which culminated in the Second World War, are well known. Chamberlain declared war on Germany on 3 Sep 1939 following the invasion of Poland and he resigned, as Prime Minister on 10 May 1940 after the defeat of the British forces in Norway. He became Lord President of the Council in Winston Churchill's subsequent government but resigned, owing to illness, on 1 Oct and died shortly afterwards on 9 Nov 1940. |
| Acquisition | Most items in this collection have been acquired by purchase as a means of complementing and supporting the large personal archive of Austen Chamberlain. The collection also includes a number of gifts and deposits and photocopies of originals held elsewhere. For information about the provenance of specific items, please contact the University Archivist for further details. |
| Copies | The majority of this collection is available on microfilm [NCLAdd/1-116]. Facilities are available in this Library for researchers to make paper copies of individual items from these microfilms for their own private research purposes. The microfilm copy has been micropublished by Primary Source Media as part of its major micropublication of the Chamberlain Papers |
| Related Material | The Special Collections Department holds several related collections:
Neville Chamberlain Collection [NC] (catalogue is not yet available on the Online Archive Catalogue);
Austen Chamberlain Collection [AC];
Joseph Chamberlain Collection [JC];
Beatrice, Ida and Hilda Chamberlain Collection [BC] (catalogue is not yet available on the Online Archive Catalogue);
Chamberlain Miscellanea [C] (catalogue is not yet available on the Online Archive Catalogue);
Artificial collections of letters and other documents of Joseph and Austen Chamberlain [JCLAdd, ACLAdd] (some catalogue records are available on the Online Archive Catalogue) |