Neville Chamberlain (police officer)

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This article is about the British Army officer and head of the Irish police force. For the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, see Neville Chamberlain.

Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order
Spouse(s)
Mary Henrietta Hay
​
​
(m. 1886; died 1936)​
Other workInspector-General, Royal Irish Constabulary

Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald Chamberlain

KStJ KPM (13 January 1856 – 28 May 1944) was an officer in the British Indian Army. He was later Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary, and resigned in the aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland. He is credited with having invented the game of snooker while serving in Jubbulpore (Jabalpur
), India, in 1875.

Early life

Chamberlain was born into a military family, in Slough, Berkshire, as the son of Charles Francis Falcon Chamberlain and his wife Marianne Ormsby Drury. He was also the nephew of

Brentwood School, and the Royal Military College, Sandhurst.[1]

Military career

Chamberlain was commissioned a

lieutenant-colonel on 1 July 1887.[7]

In 1890 he became Military Secretary to the Kashmir government.[1] He was promoted to brevet colonel on 6 January 1894.[8] He was promoted to colonel on 6 February 1899,[9] when he was appointed Colonel on the Staff in Delhi.[7]

Following the outbreak of the

despatches from the war in 1900.[11]

Royal Irish Constabulary

Chamberlain was made a

Companion of the Order of the Bath in 1900. In the same year he was appointed Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC), the armed police force for the whole of Ireland except Dublin.[12] The force was under the direct control of the British Administration in Ireland, based in Dublin Castle. It was responsible for intelligence gathering as well as maintaining order, and was seen as the "eyes and ears" of the government.[13] He formally resigned from the British Army on 1 November 1901.[14]

He was appointed

Venerable Order of Saint John in April 1914,[16] and was awarded the King's Police Medal in the 1915 New Year Honours.[17] Chamberlain's years in the RIC coincided with the rise of a number of political, cultural and sporting organisations with the common aim of separating Ireland from the UK, which were often referred to as Sinn Féin, culminating in the formation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913.[18]

In reports to the

Royal Commission on the 1916 Rebellion (the Hardinge commission) cleared the RIC of any blame for the Rising, Chamberlain was eventually forced to resign following continued criticism of the force's intelligence handling.[1]

Later life

After his retirement, Chamberlain lived in Ascot, Berkshire, England. On 19 March 1938, he had a letter published in The Field in which he claimed to have invented the game of snooker at the officers' mess of the 11th Devonshire Regiment in Jubbulpore (Jabalpur), India in 1875. His claim was supported by the author Compton Mackenzie in a letter to The Billiard Player in 1939, and has been accepted by present-day governing bodies, such as the International Billiards and Snooker Federation.[3]

Mary Henrietta Hay in 1902

The

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes the circumstances in which the new game came about:[1]

While serving at Jubbulpore in 1875 Chamberlain developed a new variation of black pool by introducing coloured balls into the game. It was dubbed snooker—a derogatory nickname given to first-year cadets studying at the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich that Chamberlain had heard about from a young Royal Artillery subaltern visiting the mess. Chamberlain later retorted to a fellow player who had failed to pot a coloured ball: "Why, you're a regular snooker". While explaining the term to his fellow officers Chamberlain, to mollify the officer concerned, remarked that they were all "snookers at the game" and the name snooker or snooker's pool immediately stuck.

Chamberlain married Mary Henrietta Hay (1866–1936) in 1886. Their daughter, Nora (1887–1956), married Clive Wigram, 1st Baron Wigram.[12] Chamberlain died from myocarditis at his home on 28 May 1944, aged 88.[1]

References

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/73766
    . Retrieved 11 February 2008
  2. ^ a b "No. 24909". The London Gazette. 3 December 1880. p. 6539.
  3. ^ a b c Ainsworth, Peter. "The Origin of Snooker: The Neville Chamberlain Story" (PDF). International Billiards and Snooker Federation. Archived from the original (PDF) on 11 October 2012.
  4. ^ "No. 25096". The London Gazette. 18 April 1882. p. 1741.
  5. ^ "No. 25520". The London Gazette. 16 October 1885. p. 4787.
  6. ^ "No. 25527". The London Gazette. 6 November 1885. p. 5081.
  7. ^ a b Hart's Army list, 1901
  8. ^ "No. 26591". The London Gazette. 22 January 1895. p. 416.
  9. ^ "No. 27085". The London Gazette. 2 June 1899. p. 3521.
  10. ^ "No. 27146". The London Gazette. 22 December 1899. p. 8542.
  11. ^ "No. 27282". The London Gazette. 8 February 1901. p. 844.
  12. ^ a b c Hawkins, Richard (October 2009). "Chamberlain, Sir Neville Francis Fitzgerald". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 24 April 2022.
  13. ISBN 0-631-22817-9
    , p. 477
  14. ^ "No. 27380". The London Gazette. 26 November 1901. p. 8095.
  15. ^ "No. 27586". The London Gazette. 11 August 1903. p. 5058.
  16. ^ "No. 28818". The London Gazette. 29 December 1914. p. 2874.
  17. ^ "No. 29024". The London Gazette (Supplement). 3 April 1914. p. 4.
  18. ISBN 0299186709
    . Retrieved 6 January 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  19. ISBN 0750934336
    . Retrieved 6 January 2024 – via Internet Archive.
  20. ISBN 081476150X
    . Retrieved 6 January 2024 – via Internet Archive.
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