Chamberlain's municipal gospel
While concerns over education policy might have first drawn Joseph Chamberlain into municipal politics (he was elected to Birmingham council in 1869), he soon started to express his faith in the almost limitless virtue of local government.
In contrast to the parliament at Westminster, concerned with lofty matters of Empire and war, he celebrated the immediacy of local government to the people. Its actions had the capacity to change people's lives substantially for the better by transforming the urban environment.
"By its means you will be able to increase their comforts, to secure their health, to multiply the luxuries which they may enjoy in common, to carry out vast cooperation systems for mutual aid and support, to lessen the inequalities of our social system, and to raise the standard of all classes in the community," he later declared.
With new faith in the authority and functions of the council came a resolute belief in the duty of service. Chamberlain ingested the municipal gospel and, while he never suggested office was a divine calling, he certainly strove to elevate the reputation of councillors both by his own service and by encouraging his peers.
He shared the view that there was little more contemptible than sophisticated condescension towards those willing to stand election or (even worse) the narrow-minded hostility of the petit bourgeoisie to men of means and vision trying to improve the city.
"I do not think there is any sneer more undeserved than that directed
against men who were willing unselfishly to devote their best energies and services to the town in which they lived, and I have always thought those who professed to think themselves above such work were infinitely beneath it.
"There is no nobler sphere for those who have not the opportunity of engaging in imperial politics than to take part in municipal work, to the wise conduct of which they owe the welfare, the health, the comfort, and the lives of 400,000 people."
For this was what attracted Chamberlain into office: the potentiality of power. As permissive legislation granted local authorities ever greater sanction to intervene with the city, the capacity of councils grew even more varied. According to Chamberlain: "If a man has leisure, and wants occupation, his taste must be difficult indeed if he cannot find some congenial employment in connection with multifarious duties of the town council of Birmingham."
With the city's most celebrated ministers preaching an ethic of municipal service and civil society's most fashionable figures standing for office, it became a mark of social cachet to stand for the council. High flying, confident entrepreneurs were now in charge of the city. At the forefront was Chamberlain. He became mayor in 1873 and left business for politics, determined to make real the lofty ideals of the municipal gospel. "In 12 months, by God's help, the town shall not know itself," he announced.