Talk:Joseph Chamberlain

Elan Valley Water
In the History of Birmingham article, it is suggested that the scheme to bring water to Birmingham from the Elan Valley in Wales was approved in 1891, long after Chamberlain's mayoralty. However, this article has stated for quite some time that Chamberlain was responsible for implementing this during his tenure as Mayor between 1873 and 1876. There is obviously a conflict here, and I am inclined to remove the information from this article.

InfectedWithRage 22:48, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

Length
Anyone else think this is a little long. Anyone willing to edit it down a bit? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.107.29.197 (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes and NO WAAAAAAAY!!--Lacatosias 12:04, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

YES! Tthis is ridiculously long for what should be a brief encyclopedia biography. It appears someone has simply copied and pasted a very long (and boring) biography in from somewhere else. What we want is a brief description of his career, achievemnets etc., not this enormous nonsense. Megawattbulbman 15:46, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia is a depository of information and knowledge - this particular article is exceptionally detailed, more so than other biographical articles, and is a credit to the site. Wikipedia is criticised often enough without people wishing to reduce articles to suit those with painfully short attention spans. As long as the article is well written and organised with relevant headings, then I see no problem. ForeignMinister 09:00, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

This article should NOT be shortened. It is well written and full of detailed information- exactly the kind of article which should be a model for Wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bruce Cabot (talk • contribs) 03:28, 3 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Good article. Could use more footnotes and references though. Bastie 19:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

Tropical diseases
He was also instrumental in recognising the need to treat tropical diseases, given that travellers and sailors were returning from abroad with "new" diseases". It is with his help to Patrick Manson that the world's first dedicated specialist hospital was set up (Albert Dock Seamen's Hospital) that would later be known as Hospital for Tropical Diseases that continues to this day. However where to insert this information ? The correct time-line point is in the middle of the discussion on various wars & international developments, so at the end under 'Legacy' ? David Ruben Talk 18:26, 15 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, either in the 'Legacy' section or even the 'Colonial Secretary' section ought to be a good place. :) InfectedWithRage 18:03, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Error in an American title fixed.
Chamberlain's third American wife's father was "Secretary of War", not "Secretary of State for War"; that would be a British formation.

I also tweaked a couple of poorly phrased sentences and discarded an unnecessary reference/link to Washington DC. --Rich Rostrom 08:12, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

No mention of the Highbury Hall article
I'm surprised that the internal link to Highbury Hall is not provided, and vice versa, that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highbury_Hall page has no link to this article. Dglp (talk) 08:44, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Add a reference to G. K. Chesterton's "The Man Who Was Thursday"?
I think it would be fun and appropriate to add mention (References?) to the anarchists' use of "Mr. Joseph Chamberlain" as a password in Chapter II of "The Man Who Was Thursday" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Who_Was_Thursday. G. K. Chesterton in fact editorializes a bit when he says "the crowd of Joseph Chamberlains (a solemn thought)"... Meneelyt (talk) 16:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

New files
Recently the files below were uploaded and they appear to be relevant to this article and not currently used by it. If you're interested and think they would be a useful addition, please feel free to include any of them.

Dcoetzee 03:34, 24 April 2009 (UTC)

1885 elections
It says "Chamberlain began his election campaign by addressing an enthusiastic crowd in front of large posters declaring Chamberlain to be 'Your coming Prime Minister'." Is that so? or was he supporting Gladstone or someone else? Thanks, Happy138 (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * According to Judd's biography at p. 122 there was such a banner. Chamberlain was regarded in 1885 by the Radicals as the most likely successor to the ageing Gladstone InfectedWithRage  —Preceding undated comment added 17:55, 14 March 2010 (UTC).
 * Thanks! Happy138 (talk) 20:20, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Error in Infobox
The Infobox states, "Leader of the Opposition, In office, February 1906 – February 1906". So he was Leader of the Opposition for less than a month then. This seems unlikely. HairyWombat (talk) 05:24, 22 May 2010 (UTC)


 * It is entirely accurate. Balfour lost his seat at the 1906 general election.  Chamberlain stood in for him as Leader of the Opposition until Balfour found another seat and resumed his post.  InfectedWithRage  —Preceding undated comment added 12:22, 22 May 2010 (UTC).

Good enough. It might be an idea to make this clearer in the article. HairyWombat (talk) 18:23, 22 May 2010 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 20:31, 29 April 2016 (UTC)

Date of Main Photo
Does anybody know where the main photo is from, so that we can verify the date?

1909 would mean it was taken after his stroke - his right hand does look awkwardly arranged, but my understanding is that he could no longer wear his monocle after his stroke (it is of course not entirely impossible that it could have been fixed into place for a photo with a couple of tiny dabs of something sticky).

The 1977 Enoch Powell biog has a photo of him clearly taken after his stroke (although annoyingly not labelled as such) - hand awkwardly arranged with fingers splayed, and not wearing his monocle.

There are few photos of him from the Edwardian period but I saw one in a hotel in Birmingham, taken during his birthday celebrations, and in which he looked aged and exhausted, in line with eyewitness accounts. It's not impossible that the photo in the article was taken much earlier, as he still looks fairly youthful as he did up until about 1900.Paulturtle (talk) 17:49, 30 April 2017 (UTC)


 * It's from the Library of Congress, the information about it is here. DuncanHill (talk) 17:55, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks - if the date is right it's not impossible that his face has been overpainted to make him look a bit younger, like they used to do with Soviet photos in the interwar period, and a monocle could have been added at that stage.Paulturtle (talk) 18:27, 30 April 2017 (UTC) And if, as I suspect, the photo has been airbrushed a bit (if it actually dates from 1909), they might also have painted over any signs of drooping on the right side of his face. The only photo of him in public (his only public appearance in fact) after his stroke is his appearance at a garden party at Highbury in late May 1914, his farewell to Birmingham, reproduced on p.665 of the Peter Marsh biog. He looks a lot pointier about the face there and his right hand appears to be clenched into a fist.Paulturtle (talk) 23:56, 30 April 2017 (UTC)

For what it's worth, here is another from 1913 with his daughter Ida (published the following year when he announced his retirement - my comment above that the only photo of him in public after his stroke was in May 1914 is clearly incorrect):

https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/joseph-chamberlain-liberal-politician-illustrated-london-news-ltdmar.jpg

He looks thin about the face, in line with eyewitness accounts that he looked ill and was ageing rapidly after his serious head injury in the early 1900s, a bit droopy on the right hand side (note the artfully arranged right hand), and of course not wearing his monocle. So that's further circumstantial evidence that the "1909" photo may in fact date from somewhat earlier. The odd-looking arrangement of the fingers on his right hand in the "1909" photo is consistent with the "1906" photo of him standing relatively healthily outside Parliament, later in the article, so is not necessarily evidence of it being taken post-stroke.Paulturtle (talk) 03:56, 23 October 2019 (UTC)