William Delafield Arnold, Date of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWilliam Delafield Arnold
author and colonial administrator
Date of Birth: 
About William Delafield Arnold
- William Delafield Arnold (7 April 1828 – 9 April 1859) was a British author and colonial administrator. He was the fourth son of Thomas Arnold who was the headmaster of Rugby School.
- His older brothers included the poet and critic Matthew Arnold and the literary scholar Tom Arnold.
- Not long after his father's death during 1842, William, a pupil at Rugby School, was part of a committee of three, Arnold, W.
- W.
- Shirley and Frederick Hutchins, that drew up the first written rules for football at Rugby School.
- These rules were approved in August 1845 and published that same year, becoming the first known published set of rules for any code of football.
- Later, William served as an educational administrator (during 1855) in Punjab, in British India; as the first director of public instruction in the Punjab, he was responsible for implementing "Halkabandi" in that province.
- One of his most significant achievements was to enact a law separating church and state in public schools.
- As a result, Hindu pupils who attended these schools were no longer required to study the Bible or the Koran in public schools.
- This policy would later influence public schools in England as well.
- While working in India, William wrote several articles for "Fraser's Magazine," mainly concerning "the India question" (see bibliography).
- During 1853, William published a novel of Anglo-Indian life, Oakfield; or, Fellowship in the East, which explores commonalities between spiritual traditions of the East and the West, while also predicting the "mutiny" that would occur soon afterward.
- The main character of Oakfield is dying of disease contracted in India; its author was afflicted with the same disease.
- William died aged thirty-one, at Gibraltar, on his way home from India.
- Matthew Arnold's poem "A Southern Night" mourns his early death.
- William's orphaned children were adopted by his sister Jane Martha and her husband William Edward Forster. His eldest son Edward Penrose Arnold-Forster (1851 – 18 January 1927) was a manufacturer in Yorkshire and deputy lieutenant for the West Riding.
- Another son, Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster, became a Cabinet minister in Arthur Balfour's government.
Read more at Wikipedia