Short answers, pulled from the story.
Joseph Chamberlain was born on the 8th of July 1836 on Camberwell Grove in London. He grew up in a family that ran a shoe business occupying the same warehouse at Milk Street for three generations.
Joseph Chamberlain forcibly purchased two gas companies for £1,953,050 to unify municipal supply and bought waterworks for £1,350,000 in January 1876. These actions created a Corporation Water Department and led to slum clearance plans starting in July 1875 that reduced the death rate from 53 per 1,000 between 1873-1875 to just 21 per 1,000 by 1879-1881.
Joseph Chamberlain resigned from the Cabinet two days after Gladstone revealed plans implementing Home Rule requiring Nationalist support. He made his resignation public on the 27th of March 1886 to launch a campaign against proposals he believed threatened empire unity.
Joseph Chamberlain took charge of the Colonial Office on the 1st of July 1895 and ordered imperial trade preferential tariffs while fostering closer relations with settler colonies. His aggressive development projects included sanctioning the conquest of the Ashanti Confederacy and annexing the Gold Coast to construct railways using emergency funds for Lagos Sierra Leone and Gold Coast.
Joseph Chamberlain directed steady military pressure on the Transvaal and Orange Free State ostensibly to protect civil rights for Uitlanders. He worked with High Commissioner Sir Alfred Milner to conclude that war was inevitable, leading to an ultimatum issued by Kruger on the 9th of October and declarations of war by the South African Republic and Orange Free State on the 12th of October.