What was here?
A 20-metre Gothic spire of Portland stone over a fountain, with mosaics and a portrait medallion of Chamberlain, put up by public subscription beside the Town Hall in 1880.
History
Thanks in stone
Most men wait until they are dead for a memorial. Joseph Chamberlain got his at the age of 44. In three years as mayor, from November 1873 to June 1876, he had taken the town’s gas and water into public hands and launched the Improvement Scheme that drove Corporation Street through the slums. Birmingham raised £3,000 to say thank you.
The inscription spells it out: “This memorial is erected in gratitude for public service given to this town by Joseph Chamberlain who was elected Town Councillor in November 1869, Mayor in November 1873, and resigned that office in June 1876 on being returned as one of the representatives of the Borough of Birmingham in Parliament.”
A Gothic spire
The designer was John Henry Chamberlain, no relation, an architect, a Liberal and a friend. He gave it four gabled faces filled with diaper work and mosaic, corner pinnacles and a crocketed spire with an iron finial. S. Barfield of Leicester carved the capitals and the spire, and Salviati of Venice made the mosaics. Thomas Woolner, the Pre-Raphaelite sculptor, modelled Chamberlain’s head in profile for the medallion.
On 20 October 1880 it was inaugurated, with Chamberlain there to watch. It was fitting that it was a fountain: he was the mayor who had brought the town’s water supply into public ownership.
Dry years and wet ones
In the late 1960s the pools around it were taken away. The Birmingham Civic Society paid for them to be put back in 1978 to mark its own diamond jubilee. The spire was cleaned in 1994. During the Paradise redevelopment the square around it was rebuilt, and when Chamberlain Square reopened on 29 March 2021 the memorial had been cleaned and renovated, with the fountain and its jets replaced.
The same spot, then and now
1888–1913
Today
Old map: Ordnance Survey six-inch, reproduced with the permission of the National Library of Scotland (CC BY 4.0). Today: © OpenStreetMap contributors.
It has outlived the Victorian library behind it and the concrete one that replaced it. Water still runs in Joe’s fountain.
What happened here?
A memorial fountain to Joseph Chamberlain was built here in 1880 and has stood in the square ever since, through two rebuildings of the civic centre around it.
Why it mattered
It marks the moment Birmingham’s council became a model for municipal government, and the man who led it, in the square that still bears his name.
What’s there now
What survives
The 1880 spire, mosaics and medallion, with a replacement basin and new fountain jets of 2021.
Today
It stands in the middle of Chamberlain Square, between the Town Hall, the Museum and Art Gallery and the new Paradise buildings.
Then and now
Then · 15 September 2012
Now · 19 July 2024
Key dates
- November 1873 — Joseph Chamberlain becomes mayorJoseph Chamberlain is elected Mayor of Birmingham. In under three years the council takes over gas and water and launches the Improvement Scheme. He resigns in June 1876 on entering Parliament.
- 20 October 1880 — The Chamberlain Memorial is inauguratedJ. H. Chamberlain’s Gothic memorial fountain, paid for by public subscription to thank Joseph Chamberlain for his mayoralty, is inaugurated with Chamberlain present.
Sources and further reading
Inauguration date: 20 October 1880 in Wikipedia’s article on the memorial and the van der Krogt database; 10 October 1880 in Wikipedia’s article on Chamberlain Square.
Historic England’s list entry describes the basin as “a modern replacement”. The £3,000 figure, the carvers and the 1960s–1978 history of the pools come from Wikipedia and have not been checked against primary records.
- Joseph Chamberlain Memorial, Chamberlain Square — National Heritage List for England entry 1220619 — Historic England
- Birmingham – Chamberlain Memorial — R. & D. van der Krogt (Hither & Thither). inscription
- Chamberlain Memorial — Wikipedia
- Chamberlain Square — Wikipedia
- Chamberlain Square re-opens at Paradise — Paradise Birmingham, 2021
- A History of the County of Warwick, vol. 7: The City of Birmingham — Local Government and Public Services, pp. 318–353 — W. B. Stephens (ed.), Victoria County History, 1964
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