At the time, Chamberlain was notable for his attacks on the Conservative leader Lord Salisbury, and in the 1885 general election he proposed the "Unauthorised Programme", which was not enacted, of benefits for newly enfranchised agricultural labourers, including the slogan promising "three acres and a cow".

[11] 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 (their warehouse having been at Milk Street, London, for three generations)[10] making quality leather shoes.

Chamberlain was one of the 250,000, including the mayor, who marched for Reform in Birmingham on 27 August 1866; he recalled that "men poured into the hall, black as they were from the factories...the people were packed together like herrings" to listen to a speech by John Bright.

Chamberlain impressed the Prime Minister with his lucid speech, and during the bill's second reading Gladstone agreed to make amendments that removed church schools from rate-payer control and granted them funding.

Deploring the rising death rate from contagious diseases in the poorest parts of the city, in January 1876 Chamberlain forcibly purchased Birmingham's waterworks for a combined sum of £1,350,000, creating Birmingham Corporation Water Department, having declared to a House of Commons Committee that "We have not the slightest intention of making profit... We shall get our profit indirectly in the comfort of the town and in the health of the inhabitants.” Despite this noticeable executive action, Chamberlain was mistrustful of central authority and bureaucracy, preferring to give local communities the responsibility to act on their own initiative.

[26] The mayoralty helped make Chamberlain a national as well as local figure, with contemporaries commenting upon his youthfulness and dress, including "a black velvet coat, jaunty eyeglass in eye, red neck-tie drawn through a ring".

Almost immediately upon entry to the House of Commons, Chamberlain began to organise the Radical MPs into a coherent parliamentary group, with the intent to displace Whig dominance of the Liberal Party.

On 31 May 1877, the National Liberal Federation (NLF) was founded at Bingley Hall, with Gladstone offering the inaugural address, Chamberlain as its president, and Birmingham politicians playing a dominant part in its organisation.

Despite having sat in Parliament for only four years, Chamberlain hoped for a Cabinet position, and told Sir William Harcourt that he was prepared to lead a revolt and field Radical candidates in borough elections.

In an effort to quiet agitation in Ireland through appeasement, Chamberlain supported calls for a Land Bill and opposed Chief Secretary William Edward Forster's tactics of lethal force and mass imprisonment.

Early in the Gladstone ministry, Chamberlain unsuccessfully suggested the extension of the franchise; the Prime Minister deferred until 1884, when the Liberals proposed a Third Reform Bill which gave the vote to hundreds of thousands of rural labourers.

The resignations were not made public, but the opportunity came for Chamberlain to present his Radicalism to the country after the Gladstone budget failed on 8 June, triggering a new general election with a dramatically expanded, redistributed electorate.

Until the campaign's end in October, he denounced opponents of the Programme and used the slogan "Three Acres and a Cow" to endorse the cause of the rural labourers, offering to make smallholdings available to them by using funds from local authorities.

While saying little about the topic publicly, Chamberlain privately damned Gladstone and Home Rule to colleagues, believing that maintaining the Conservatives in power for a further year would make the Irish question easier to settle.

Chamberlain's choice to enter the cabinet in a subordinate role was the result of an adjustment in his political strategy following a lost dispute over a seat at Leamington Spa putting his program of social reform on the back burner.

In March 1898, the French proposed a settlement: Bussa was returned to Britain in exchange for the town of Bona, imposing British control over the Niger and the inland territories of Sokoto; the region was later consolidated as Nigeria.

In 2002, The Van Riebeeck Society published Secret History of the Jameson Raid and the South African Crisis, 1895–1902, a contemporary insider account by Robinson's secretary, Sir Graham Bower.

'"[citation needed][55] Cousins further writes:[55] [Bower] believed that, as he had given Rhodes his word not to divulge certain private conversations, he had to abide by that, while at the same time he was convinced that it would be very damaging to Britain if he said anything to the parliamentary committee to show the close involvement of Sir Hercules Robinson and Joseph Chamberlain in their disreputable encouragement of those plotting an uprising in Johannesburg.

"[a] When British forcefulness incensed German official and public opinion, Chamberlain made efforts to improve relations by facilitating a visit by Kaiser Wilhelm II and von Bülow.

In May 1899, Milner met with State President of the South African Republic Paul Kruger but failed to resolve tensions; the Boers left the conference convinced that the British were determined to use force.

The blood mantled in his cheek, and his eye as it caught mine twinkled with pure enjoyment.Churchill later wrote of the period, "Mr. Chamberlain was incomparably the most live, sparkling, insurgent, compulsive figure in British affairs ... 'Joe' was the one who made the weather.

[66] On 25 October 1901, as part of a defense of British Army tactics in South Africa, Chamberlain made a favorable comparison to the conduct of troops in the Franco-Prussian War, a statement directed at Germany.

In February 1902, at a banquet at Marlborough House held by King Edward VII, Chamberlain and Cambon resumed their negotiations, with Eckardstein reputedly listening to their conversation and only successfully managing to comprehend the words "Morocco" and "Egypt".

The end of war and the annexation of Boer territory presented Chamberlain an opportunity to remodel Britain's imperial system, though at a high cost: the British had put nearly 450,000 troops into the field and had spent nearly £200 million.

In response to Chamberlain's warning and suggestion that voluntary Church schools receive funds from central rather than local government, Robert Laurie Morant replied that the Boer War had drained the Exchequer.

Winston Churchill, among its members in attendance, later recalled: As [Chamberlain] rose to leave he paused at the door, and turning said with much deliberation, "You young gentlemen have entertained me royally, and in return I will give you a priceless secret.

Serious debate was sidelined while the Board of Trade compiled statistics, but a Cabinet meeting on 13 August failed to agree, and a final decision was postponed until 14 September, which Balfour hoped would allow Chamberlain time to moderate his position.

[citation needed] Five days in advance of the scheduled meeting, Chamberlain dramatically sent a letter of resignation to Balfour on 9 September, explaining his wish to campaign publicly for imperial preference outside the Cabinet.

The newly formed Tariff Reform League received vast funding, allowing it to print and distribute large numbers of leaflets and even to play Chamberlain's recorded messages to public meetings by gramophone.

[citation needed] On 8 July 1906 Chamberlain celebrated his seventieth birthday and Birmingham was enlivened for a number of days by official luncheons, public addresses, parades, bands and an influx of thousands of congratulatory telegrams.