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'''Sir Joseph Austen Chamberlain''' {{postnominals|country=UK|size=100%|KG}} (16 October 1863 – 16 March 1937) was a British [[wikt:statesman|statesman]], son of [[Joseph Chamberlain]] and older half-brother of Prime Minister [[Neville Chamberlain]]. He served as a [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for 45 years, as [[Chancellor of the Exchequer]] (twice) and was briefly [[Leader of the Conservative Party (UK)|Conservative Party leader]] before serving as [[Foreign Secretary]].
 
Brought up to be the political heir of his father, whom he physically resembled, he was elected to [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|Parliament]] as a [[Liberal Unionist]] at a by-election in 1892. He held office in the [[Unionist government, 1895–1905|Unionist coalition governments]] of 1895–1905, remaining in the Cabinet as Chancellor of the Exchequer (1903–05) after his father resigned in 1903 to campaign for [[Tariff Reform]]. After his father's disabling stroke in 1906, Austen became the leading tariff reformer in the House of Commons. Late in 1911 he and [[Walter Long, 1st Viscount Long|Walter Long]] were due to compete for the leadership of the Conservative Party (in succession to [[Arthur Balfour]]), but both withdrew in favour of [[Bonar Law]] rather than risk a party split on a close result.
 
Chamberlain returned to office in [[H. H. Asquith]]'s wartime [[Asquith coalition ministry|coalition government]] in May 1915, as [[Secretary of State for India]], but resigned to take responsibility for the disastrous [[Siege of Kut|Kut Campaign]]. He again returned to office in [[David Lloyd George]]'s [[Lloyd George ministry|coalition government]], once again serving as Chancellor of the Exchequer. He then served as Conservative Party leader in the Commons (1921–21921–1922), before resigning after the [[Carlton Club meeting]] voted to end the Lloyd George Coalition.
 
Like many leading coalitionists, he did not hold office in the [[Conservative government, 1922–1924|Conservative governments of 1922–41922–1924]]. By now regarded as an elder statesman, he served an important term as Foreign Secretary in [[Stanley Baldwin]]'s [[Second Baldwin ministry|second government]] (1924–291924–1929). He negotiated the [[Locarno Treaties]] (1925), aimed at preventing war between [[Interwar France|France]] and [[Weimar Republic|Germany]], for which he was awarded the [[Nobel Peace Prize]]. Chamberlain last held office as [[First Lord of the Admiralty]] in 1931. He was one of the few MPs supporting [[Winston Churchill]]'s appeals for rearmament against the German threat in the 1930s and remained an active backbench MP until his death in 1937.
 
== Early life ==