CHAMBERLAIN, ARTHUR NEVILLE (1869— ), British politician, was born March 18, 1869, the son of Joseph Chamberlain by his second wife. Educated at Rugby and Mason college, Birmingham, his father sent him out at an early age to manage an estate in the Bahamas, but returning to his native city he won success in business as a manufacturer. In 1911 he entered the Birmingham city council, became chairman of its town-plan ning committee and was lord mayor in 1915-16. During his may oralty the Birmingham municipal bank, the only institution of its kind in England, was established and he then began to acquire his mastery of the housing question. During the early part of the World War he was an active member of the central board of con trol of the liquor traffic under the Munitions Act, and in Dec. 1916 was appointed by D. Lloyd George director of national service. His schemes for co-ordinating military and civil employ ment met with much opposition, and in 1917 he resigned. At the general election of the following year he entered parliament as member for the Ladywood division of Birmingham, was post master-general from Oct. 1922 to March 1923, and minister of health in 1923. In the latter capacity he was responsible for the Housing and Rent Restriction Acts of 1923. He was appointed chancellor of the exchequer by Stanley Baldwin in Aug. 1923, but the Government fell before he could present a budget. On the formation of the second Baldwin Administration in 1924 he might have gone again to the exchequer had he so desired, but preferred the ministry of health with its opportunities for the work he had at heart—social improvement. In this office he carried through simultaneously in 1926 a technical and complicated measure, the Rating and Valuation Act ; also the great extension of the Pen sions Acts to widows and orphans. During his tenure of office he had to deal with some very difficult questions of local govern ment, especially the heavy local costs of poor relief. On the purely health side of the work of the department the most important work accomplished was the bringing into force of the Milk and Dairies Order, and of the regulations with regard to preservatives in food. But Neville Chamberlain's best work resulted from the driving power he threw into house-building to meet the post-war need, and was specially evident in his introduction of his great scheme for the reform of local government and of local taxation in the autumn session of 1928. In 1931 he again became chan cellor of the exchequer. In May 1937, upon Baldwin's retire ment, Chamberlain became Prime Minister.