1. William Edward Arnold-Forster was an English author, artist, educator, gardener, Labour Party politician and retired naval officer.
13 Facts About William Arnold-Forster
1. 2.
William Arnold-Forster was married to Katherine Laird Cox, a former member of the Bloomsbury group, and associated with Rupert Brooke and the Neo-pagans at Cambridge University.
3.
William Arnold-Forster was born into a distinguished military and political family in 1886, the youngest son of Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster, a Liberal Unionist MP and his wife, Mary Story-Maskeline, daughter of Nevil Story Maskelyne.
4.
William Arnold-Forster had three older brothers, Mervyn, John and Christopher.
5.
William Arnold-Forster inherited an interest in art from his mother, studying at the Slade School.
6.
William Arnold-Forster moved to Italy in 1911, living near Fiesole in Tuscany until 1914 when he returned to England at the beginning of World War I, joining the Royal Navy and working in the Admiralty, having previously been a naval cadet.
7.
William Arnold-Forster was an enthusiastic gardener, and the garden that he created at 'The Eagle's Nest' was described as spectacular.
8.
William Arnold-Forster worked on the Memorial Garden at St Ives, and with the sculptor Barbara Hepworth on her garden there.
9.
William Arnold-Forster died in 1951 at the age of 65.
10.
On 21 December 1914, William Arnold-Forster enlisted in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve, joining the Trade Division at the Admiralty where he was involved in planning the naval blockade of Germany.
11.
William Arnold-Forster joined the Union of Democratic Control, a pressure group arguing for more parliamentary control over foreign policy, and against war.
12.
William Arnold-Forster lectured at the University of Virginia Institute of Public Affairs in 1938.
13.
William Arnold-Forster's work is included in the National Portrait Gallery, London.