Until ill health forced him to resign on 22 September 1940, Chamberlain was an important member of the war cabinet as Lord President of the Council, heading the government in Churchill's absence. Although he still led the Conservative Party, he was succeeded as prime minister by his colleague Winston Churchill. Accepting that a national government supported by all the main parties was essential, Chamberlain resigned the premiership because the Labour and Liberal parties would not serve under his leadership. Chamberlain's conduct of the war was heavily criticised by members of all parties and, in a vote of confidence, his government's majority was greatly reduced. The failure of Allied forces to prevent the German invasion of Norway caused the House of Commons to hold the historic Norway Debate in May 1940. In response to Hitler's continued aggression, Chamberlain pledged the United Kingdom to defend Poland's independence if the latter were attacked, an alliance that brought his country into war after the German invasion of Poland. His premiership was dominated by the question of policy towards an increasingly aggressive Germany, and his actions at Munich were widely popular among the British at the time. He was appointed Chancellor of the Exchequer in the National Government in 1931.Ĭhamberlain succeeded Stanley Baldwin as prime minister on. After a short-lived Labour-led government, he returned as Minister of Health, introducing a range of reform measures from 1924 to 1929. He was rapidly promoted in 1923 to Minister of Health and then Chancellor of the Exchequer. He declined a junior ministerial position, remaining a backbencher until 1922. Īfter working in business and local government, and after a short spell as Director of National Service in 19, Chamberlain followed his father Joseph Chamberlain and elder half-brother Austen Chamberlain in becoming a Member of Parliament in the 1918 general election for the new Birmingham Ladywood division at the age of 49. Following the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, which marked the beginning of the Second World War, Chamberlain announced the declaration of war on Germany two days later and led the United Kingdom through the first eight months of the war until his resignation as prime minister on. He is best known for his foreign policy of appeasement, and in particular for his signing of the Munich Agreement on 30 September 1938, ceding the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany led by Adolf Hitler. Arthur Neville Chamberlain FRS ( / ˈ tʃ eɪ m b ər l ɪ n/ 18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940) was a British politician of the Conservative Party who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from May 1937 to May 1940.

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