| Chapter 1: | Two Tory Radicals: Lord Randolph Churchill, Joseph Chamberlain and the Evolution of their Views on the Irish Question to 1880 |
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in preventing Forster becoming leader of the Liberal party. They preferred the Whig Lord Hartington to Forster, ‘because the latter was deemed to be a traitor on one specific issue’18
In the course of his attempts to defeat the Education Bill, Chamberlain’s political ideology was developing its Radical form. However, it must be kept in mind that he was a product, rather than an innovator, of Birmingham Radicalism. Ostensibly he was a Liberal, but nevertheless an antagonist of the Liberal party. His Radicalism, for which he would be known for many years, was clearly becoming ascendant. To this end, his aim was to reform the Liberal party on Radical lines. As he explained to William Harcourt on 2 July 1870:
We are powerless in this house, and I doubt if anything short of a General Election will give us what we want … As it is the Government has beaten all sections in detail and remains master of the situation for the present … but we shall endeavour to test the feeling of the country this autumn and at every by-election that takes place.19
Around this time, Chamberlain had befriended Sir Charles Dilke, the Radical Liberal politician, who had been a protagonist in the fight against the Education Bill.20 Chamberlain wanted Dilke to suggest the names of any ‘fanatics willing to join the Forlorn Hope and help in smashing up that white sepulchre called the Liberal party’.21 He was also complaining to George Dixon that he would prefer a Tory ministry in power to this ‘Liberal government truckling to Tory prejudices’.22 As late as 1873 he was still trying ‘to form a band of “irreconcilables” determined to smash up this gigantic sham, called a Liberal Party …’.23 For more than three years, while the business prospered, Chamberlain continued the fight against the Liberal party and their Education Act.
Meanwhile, in 1869 he had been elected to the Birmingham town council, and in November 1873 became mayor. He lost no time in demonstrating the entrepreneurial skills he had developed in his business. One of his major initiatives was to organise the takeover by the council of the city’s gas company, followed by the water works.