Anne Chamberlain

Who was Anne Chamberlain?

Anne Chamberlain, née de Vere Cole was the wife of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.

Anne de Vere Cole was born to Major William Utting Cole, of West Woodhay House. Her mother, Jane de Vere, was Irish, and traced her descent to the 15th Earl of Oxford; she would inherit Issercleran, Craughwell, County Galway in 1914. Her brother was Horace de Vere Cole, who inherited the family house sometime after 1889. From childhood Anne loved to travel, going abroad each year, later going to Canada and East Africa as a married woman. She wed Neville Chamberlain in January 1911, and remained his wife until his death in November 1940.

At the time of her marriage her husband, a successful businessman, was already 41 years old, and had expected to remain a bachelor. She encouraged and supported her husband's entry into local politics and he was elected to the Birmingham City Council in November 1911. In 1914, just before the outbreak of the Great War he was made an Alderman and the following year was elected to the office of Lord Mayor. This marked the beginning of a public career in which Anne Chamberlain was to be Neville's constant companion, helper and trusted colleague, and to share in full his interests in housing and other political and social activities after his election as MP for the Birmingham Constituencies of first Ladywood and then Edgbaston.