own he found
many ways of humouring his bent, and he did not mind paying the piper
pretty handsomely for his pleasure. As is well known, he was afterwards
M.P. for one of the Islington divisions for some years. Ill-health
however overtook him, and he died much regretted on the 2nd of April,
1899.

Another brother, Mr. Arthur Chamberlain, was a town councillor of
Birmingham for a limited period, and owing to his business capacity he
became a useful member of the Corporation. He did not apparently go into
the Council to make a long stay, or if he did he changed his mind, and
soon retired from municipal work. He has since spent his time in minding
his own business; in strengthening, mending, and making certain public
companies; in giving fatherly advice to company shareholders; and in
dispensing justice, sometimes with pertinent observations, on the local
magisterial bench.

Two other brothers, Mr. Herbert and Mr. Walter Chamberlain, have at
times been induced to take a little hand in public work, but their
efforts have been of a mild, modest, innocent character. Now, however,
they have retired into that privacy from which they so timidly emerged.
For many reasons Mr. Chamberlain's brothers were, perhaps, wise not to
bid high for public place and position in Birmingham. People are apt to
be needlessly suspicious of too much family influence in public
concerns. There is always a tendency and a readiness to inveigh against
cliques, especially family cliques. And at one time there was certainly
a disposition in some quarters to keep a jealous eye upon Joseph and his
brethren, lest they should acquire an undue amount of influence and
power. One blunt, outspoken Scotchman, I remember, expressed this
feeling in his own characteristic way by saying, "If we don't mind we
shall be having too much dom'd Chamberlain."

The Chamberlain family, however, being more or less smart, spry men,
were doubtless sharp enough to detect some inkling of this sort of
feeling, and consequently they thought it better to silence any such
cavillings by eschewing as far as they could public life, and contenting
themselves with being brothers of a big man and sharing a little
reflected glory.

Whilst mentioning Mr. Chamberlain's family I must say a word of his
brother-in-law, Mr. William Kenrick, for some years M.P. for the
Northern Division of Birmingham. Mr. Kenrick was Mayor of Birmingham in
1877, and a worthy and modest chief magistrate he made.