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7 unusual facts about John Henry Chamberlain


Birmingham board school

J.H. Chamberlain's firm Martin & Chamberlain (no relation of Joseph Chamberlain) was appointed architect for the new schools from the beginning.

Chamberlain Memorial

The monument was designed by John Henry Chamberlain (no relation), a personal friend and municipal architect.

John Henry Chamberlain

The Grove, Harborne, Birmingham (Demolished, one room preserved as "The Harborne Room" at the Victoria and Albert Museum. London)

12 Ampton Road (Shenstone House), Edgbaston – Chamberlain's first house; 'the first High Victorian house in the town'

Chamberlain became the unofficial domestic architect to Birmingham's civic leaders, designing a string of prestigious houses in upmarket districts of South Birmingham including Highbury Hall – the home of Joseph Chamberlain himself, and now the official residence of Birmingham's Lord Mayor.

Although Chamberlain continued to build in both Leicester and Birmingham (where he built the Edgbaston Waterworks whose tower would inspire the young J. R. R. Tolkien) his career failed to take off, and in 1864 he considered moving to New Zealand after being offered a commission to design Christchurch Cathedral.

The first of these to be completed, Eld's house at 12 Ampton Road, Edgbaston (1855) survives to this day and already shows many of the features that would characterise much of Chamberlain's later work: a gothic structure in polychromatic brick with finely crafted decoration inspired by natural and organic forms.


Icknield Street School

Designed in 1883 by J.H. Chamberlain of Martin & Chamberlain, the main architects for the Birmingham School Board, it has been St Chad's Roman Catholic Annexe and is now an Ashram Centre.


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