Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Arnold-Forster, Hugh Oakeley
ARNOLD-FORSTER, HUGH OAKELEY (1855–1909), author and politician, born on 19 Aug. 1855 at Dawlish in Devonshire, was second son and third child in the family of two sons and two daughters of William Delafield Arnold [q. v.], sometime director of public instruction in the Punjab. His mother was Frances Anne, daughter of General John Anthony Hodgson. Thomas Arnold [q. v.], headmaster of Rugby, was his grandfather, and Matthew Arnold [q. v. Suppl. I] his uncle. His parents took him out to Kangra when he was four months old. There his mother died in 1858; next year the four children were sent home to England, and the father, who followed them, died at Gibraltar on 9 April 1859. The orphaned children were at once adopted by their father's eldest sister, Jane Martha, and her husband, William Edward Forster [q. v.], who had no children of their own. Perfect confid- ence and affection marked for life the rela- tions between foster-parents and adopted children.
From a private school at Exmouth kept by his kinsman, John Penrose, Hugh passed in 1869 to Rugby, then under the head- mastership of Frederick Temple ; but when Temple was succeeded by Dr. Hayman [q. v. Suppl. II] Forster removed the boy and placed him under a private tutor. On 24 Jan. 1874 he matriculated at University College, Oxford. There he graduated B.A. in 1877 with a first class in modern history. He only proceeded M.A, in 1900. At the time of leaving Oxford he with his brother and sisters formally assumed the name of Arnold-Forster.
Settling in London, Arnold-Forster read for the bar in the chambers of Mr. R. A. M'Call (now K.C.) and was called to Lincoln's Inn on 5 Nov. 1879. There was early promise of a lucrative practice, but on Forster's appointment as chief secretary for Ireland in the second Gladstone administration in 1880, Arnold-Forster, his adopted son, became his private secretary, and he shared Forster's labours, anxieties, and incessant perils through the next two years. During this period, too, he gave first proof of his literary aptitudes. In 1881 he published anonymously ' The Truth about the Land League,' a damaging collection of facts, speeches, and documents, which ran through many editions and helped to discredit the nationalist cause in Great Britain. Thenceforth Arnold- Forster wrote much on political and social questions in the press or in independent books.
In 1885 he became a member of the publishing firm of Cassell & Co., and devoted himself with characteristic thoroughness to its affairs, until he became absorbed in politics. For Cassell's he prepared many educational handbooks designed to propagate a wise patriotism. These works included ' Citizen Reader ' series (1886 and frequently re-issued), de- scribing for children the principles and purposes of English institutions ; ' The ' Laws of Every-day Life' (1889); 'This World of Ours,' lessons in geography (1891) ; 'Things New and Old' (1893, Eng- lish History readers in seven volumes) ; 'History of England ior Children' (1897); and ' Our Great City ' (1900). He was also largely concerned as a member of the firm of Cassell's in the preparation of 'The Universal Atlas,' which subsequently be came 'The Times Atlas.'
Meanwhile he was developing his political interests. In 1884, on the foundation of the Imperial Federation League with Forster for its president, he became it secretary, and thenceforward enthusiastically advocated a closer union of empire, actively supporting the efforts Mr. Joseph Chamberlain in that direction and ultimately accepting his policy of tariff reform and colonial preference. From boyhood he had devoted himself to the close study of naval affairs and of warships. His love of the sea was insatiable, and he spent many a holiday cruising in a Thames barge, which he fitted out in quite homely fashion. In 1884 he inspired the famous articles on ' The Truth about the Navy ' (published by Mr. Stead in the 'Pall Mall Gazette'), which led to a large increase in the navy estimates under the Gladstone government and to endeavours of later governments to place the navy on a footing of adequate efficiency. In a forecast of a modern naval battle entitled ' In a Conning Tower ' (1888, 8th edit. 1898) he showed a technical knowledge remarkable in a civilian.
As early as 1881 Arnold-Forster declined an invitation to stand for parliament as liberal candidate for Oxford. In 1883 a similar invitation from Devonport led him to make several speeches in that constituency ; but before the election (of 1885) he followed Forster in dissent from the liberal policy, especially in Egypt, and he withdrew his candidature. He joined the newly formed liberal unionist party in 1886 on Gladstone's adoption of home rule^ and was defeated as a unionist candidate in June 1886 for Darlington, and again at a bye-election in 1888 for Dewsbury. At the general election of 1892 he was elected for West Belfast, and retained that seat until 1906. As a private member of parliament he addressed himself with somewhat uncompromising independence chiefly to naval, military j and imperial questions. Pamphlets on 'Our Home Army' (1892), 'Army Letters' (1898); and 'The War Office, the Army, and the Empire' (1900) gave him some reputation as a critic of military affairs. Interesting himself during the early stages of the Boer war in land settlement in South Africa, he pressed the subject on the attention of Mr. Chamberlain, then colonial secretary, who in August 1900 sent out a commission of inquiry with Arnold-Forster as chairman. Amid many interruptions and impediments he completed his task in South Africa by November, when he received and accepted Lord Salisbury's offer of the office of secretary of the ad- miralty. After drafting the report of the South African land commission he entered on his new duties. His chief, Lord Selborne, who had just succeeded George Joachim (afterwards Lord) Goschen [q. v. Suppl. II] as first lord of the admiralty, sat in the House of Lords. Arnold-Forster consequently represented the admiralty in the House of Commons, and exercised there more authority than usually belongs to a subordinate minister. At the admiralty he actively helped to carry out the drastic reforms which Lord Selborne initiated, mainly on the inspiration of Sir John (afterwards Lord) Fisher. He was prominent in formulating the administrative measures required by the new scheme of naval training ; he directed much administrative energy to the standardisation of dimensions and material in the navy, and to the higher organisation of defence with a view to the needful correlation of naval and military preparations of the kingdom and empire; he helped in the reconstruction of the committee of imperial defence.
In the autumn of 1903 secessions from the cabinet owing to Mr. Chamberlain's promulgation of the policy of tariff reform led to a reconstruction of Mr. Balfour's ministry [see Cavendish, Spencer Compton, eighth Duke of Devonshire, Suppl. II; Ritchie, Charles Thomson, first Baron Ritchie of Dundee; Suppl. II]. Arnold-Forster, an ardent supporter of tariff reform, now entered the cabinet as secretary of state for war in succession to Mr. St. John Brodrick, now Viscount Midleton, who became secretary of state for India. He was thereupon admitted to the privy council. During his recent holidays a severe strain had permanently affected Arnold-Forster's heart, and he was thenceforth hampered by increasing debility, but he threw himself into the task of reorganising the war office and the military forces of the crown with indefatigable energy. The royal commission on the South African war had lately reported, and schemes of reform were rife. The government had already decided to appoint a small committee to advise on the reconstruction of the machinery of the war office. One of Arnold- Forster's first administrative acts was to appoint Viscount Esher, Sir John Fisher, and Sir George Sydenham Clarke as the sole members of this committee, whose report resulted in the constitution, on a new and established footing, of the committee of imperial defence, and in the reconstruction of the hierarchy of the war office more or less on the model of the board of admiralty. Other reforms were initiated by Arnold-Forster, but his definite views on problems of military organisation did not always find acceptance with colleagues, who were distracted by other political issues, and by the growing weakness of the government. Stiff in opinion, clear and incisive in expression, he was perhaps a little intolerant of the views of others equally entitled to be heard ; nevertheless he secured the acceptance of the lines on which in his judgment the general staff of the army ought to be organised. But many of his general schemes were frustrated by Mr. Balfour's resignation on 4 December 1905, and his measures were not adopted by his successor.
In 1906, owing to the distance of the constituency and his decline of physical strength, he retired from the representation of West Belfast, and was returned for Croydon. In the same year he published 'The Army in 1906: a Policy and a Vindication,' his own estimate of the needs of the army and an account of his administration. In opposition he was energetic in his criticism of the military policy of Viscount Haldane, his successor at the war office. His last literary effort was 'Military Needs and Military Policy' (1908), with an introduction by Field-marshal Earl Roberts, an attempt to expose the defects which he saw in the liberal war minister's schemes.
In 1907, after recovering from a grave attack of illness, he went with his wife and a son to Jamaica on the invitation of Sir Alfred Jones [q. v. Suppl. II] in order to attend a conference of the Imperial Cotton-Growing Association. During his stay there a terrible earthquake devastated Kingston, and destroyed Port Royal. Thenceforth his health steadily failed, although he continued his political work with exemplary fortitude. He died suddenly at his London residence in South Kensington on 12 March 1909, and was buried at Wroughton, Wiltshire, the parish in which his father-in-law lived. In 1884 Arnold-Forster married Mary, eldest daughter of Mervyn Herbert Nevil Story-Maskelyne [q. v. Suppl. II]. She survived him with four sons.
With the shadow of death long hanging over him, no man, as Mr. Balfour remarked after his death, was 'more absolutely absorbed in a great and unselfish desire to carry out his own public duty.' His speeches in parliament were models of lucid exposition. He spoke, as he wrote, easily, fluently, and with an orderly evolution of his topics. He made no use of rhetorical ornament, but he seldom wearied his hearers, and never confused them by any slovenliness of preparation or obscurity of expression.
He proved his versatility by publishing, besides the works mentioned, 'What to do and how to do it' (1884), a manual of the laws affecting the housing and sanitation of London; 'The Coming of the Kilogram' (1898, 2nd edit. 1900), a defence of the metric system; and 'English Socialism of To-day' (1908, 3 edits.).
[A memoir by his wife, 1910, with a list of his more important writings; Hansard's Debates; The Times, 13 March 1909; personal knowledge; private information.]