The early life, business career and political rise of Neville Chamberlain culminated on 28 May 1937, when he was summoned to Buckingham Palace to "kiss hands" and accept the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

After a period in a firm of chartered accountants, the younger Chamberlain spent six years in the Bahamas managing a sisal plantation in a failed attempt to recoup the family fortunes.

[5] In later years, as Chamberlain rose to the heights of British politics, he seldom visited the school,[6] did not enroll his own son, and rarely spoke of his time there.

[17] His business acumen raised him in the eyes of his father, who told a friend that of his two sons, "Neville is really the clever one" and but for his lack of interest in politics, "I would back him to be Prime Minister".

[35] He advocated gradual reorganisation to abate the problem, and warned that the city government must be ready to take over property if the private sector failed.

Under Chamberlain's direction, Birmingham soon adopted one of the first town planning schemes in Britain which would, in time, be mirrored by other large industrial cities such as Liverpool and Leeds.

He set up crèches for workers, stockpiled coal to be distributed to the poor at cost in time of shortage, and reinvigorated Birmingham's various committees, which were ineffective and engaged in wasteful rivalries.

[42] In December 1916, the new prime minister David Lloyd George offered him the job, with responsibility for co-ordinating conscription and ensuring that essential war industries were able to function with sufficient workforces.

He also spurned advice from Lloyd George about his choice of advisors (apart from James Stevenson from the Ministry of Munitions who was briefly Deputy for Civil Recruiting), instead appointing cronies from Birmingham who were as out of their depth as he was.

[47] Denied the use of compulsion, Chamberlain had to persuade Britons to volunteer for essential war work, and fit young workers to leave the factories and enter the Army.

[46] Chamberlain had little confidence in voluntary schemes and they indeed proved unsuccessful, with only 9,000 workers freed to be drafted into the Army at a time when Britain was sustaining huge casualties.

John Dillon, an Irish Nationalist MP, stated that "if Mr. Chamberlain were an archangel, or if he were Hindenburg and Bismarck and all the great men of the world rolled into one, his task would be wholly beyond his powers".

[68] Neville Chamberlain was in Canada at the time of the meeting and so was not forced to choose between supporting his brother's leadership and bringing down a prime minister he despised.

[73] Bonar Law called an election shortly after his accession, which the Unionists won, and Chamberlain was re-elected, though his prediction that his seat was "safe as houses" proved dubious—his majority was reduced to 2,443.

Chamberlain was initially reluctant, feeling that he should not leave the Post Office before he "had a chance of doing something there", but decided that "it would not be playing the game" to refuse Bonar Law's request.

He miscalculated badly: in the general election held in December 1923 the Unionists remained the largest party in the House of Commons, but were outnumbered by the combined Liberal and Labour MPs.

Baldwin formed a new government, in which Austen was Foreign Secretary and Neville Chamberlain declined to serve again as chancellor, preferring his former position as Minister of Health.

Churchill, recently returned to the Conservative ranks after nineteen years as a Liberal (1904–23), expressed envy at Chamberlain's receiving the credit for the Act, and the Minister of Health described his colleague as "a man of tremendous drive & vivid imagination but obsessed with the glory of doing something spectacular which should erect monuments to him".

[88] Chamberlain sought the abolition of the elected Poor Law Boards of Guardians, which administered relief and which in some areas were responsible for setting rates (local property taxes).

[91] Finally, in 1929, Chamberlain brought in legislation to abolish the Poor Law boards entirely, replacing them with bodies appointed by local authorities.

[96] The Local Government Act 1929 passed by an ample majority, and the Morning Post commented that (despite Labour attacks), it had been found to be impossible to make it unpopular.

[98] Chamberlain easily won in Edgbaston, which he represented for the rest of his life, but the general election resulted in a hung parliament, with Labour holding the most seats.

Chamberlain attempted to mediate between the press lords and Baldwin, only to learn that the newspaper owners had been trying to influence local constituency organisations behind his back.

[106] Baldwin did not stand in the by-election, but he retained his position and attacked the press barons as wanting "power without responsibility, the prerogative of the harlot through the ages",[c] and the Conservatives won the election.

[113] Addressing a packed House, with the Prince of Wales, the Duke of York and Joseph Chamberlain's third wife in the gallery, and with his brother seated behind him,[114] Chamberlain concluded by referring to his father's inability to get a similar proposal adopted, I think he would have found consolation for the bitterness of his disappointments, if he could have seen that these proposals, which are the direct and legitimate descendants of his own conception, would be laid before the House of Commons, which he loved, in the presence of one and by the lips of another of the two immediate successors to his name and blood.

Describing the event as the "most crucial gathering since Versailles", Time magazine featured Chamberlain on its cover, referring to him as "that mighty mover behind British Cabinet scenes, lean, taciturn, iron-willed ...

[122] In 1934, Chamberlain was able to declare a budget surplus, and restore many of the cuts in unemployment compensation and civil servant's salaries he had made after taking office.

"[115] With MacDonald in physical and mental decline and Conservative Party leader Baldwin exhibiting ever greater lethargy, Chamberlain increasingly became the workhorse of the National Government.

[135] According to Time magazine, Macleod saw Chamberlain as a "humanitarian industrialist, [a] progressive Lord Mayor of Birmingham and a dedicated Minister of Health who was damned as a 'Tory socialist'[.]

[138] In the 1980s Margaret Thatcher instituted economic policies reminiscent of Chamberlain's as chancellor—control of inflation (even at the expense of unemployment), minimisation of budget deficits, and low rates of direct taxation.