Neville Chamberlain March 1869 in a house called Southbourne in the Edgbaston district of Birmingham. He was the only son of the second marriage of Joseph Chamberlain, who later became Mayor of Birmingham and a Cabinet minister. His mother was Florence Kenrick, cousin to William Kenrick MP; she died when he was a small boy. Joseph Chamberlain had had another son, Austen Chamberlain, by his first marriage. Neville Chamberlain was educated at Rugby School. Joseph Chamberlain then sent Neville to Mason College (taking external exams of University of London). Neville Chamberlain had little interest in his studies there, and in 1889 his
Neville Chamberlain seat in the small War Cabinet. The new First Lord proved to be a difficult Cabinet colleague, deluging the Prime Minister with a sea of lengthy memos. Chamberlain castigated Churchill for sending so many memos, as the two met in War Cabinet every day. Chamberlain suspected, correctly as it proved after the war, that "these letters are for the purpose of quotation in the Book that he will write hereafter". Chamberlain was also able to deter some of Churchill's more extreme plans, such as Operation Catherine, which would have sent three heavily armoured battleships into the Baltic Sea with an