William Edward Forster in 1851
William Edward Forster (July 11, 1818 – April 6, 1886), was a British
industrialist, philanthropist and
Liberal Party statesman, MP for Bradford.
Born of Quaker parents at Bradpole in
Dorset, he was educated at the Friends' school at
Tottenham, where his father's family had long been settled, and on leaving school he was put
into business. He declined to enter a brewery and became involved in woollen manufacture in a large
way at Bradford, Yorkshire.
Early life
In 1850 he married Jane Martha, eldest daughter of Dr Arnold. She was not a Quaker,
and her husband was formally excommunicated for marrying her, but the Friends who were commissioned to announce the sentence
"shook hands and stayed to luncheon." Forster thereafter ranked himself as a member of the Church of England.
The Forsters had no natural children, but when Mrs. Forster's brother, William Arnold, died in 1859, leaving four orphans, the
Forsters adopted them as their own. One of these children was Hugh Oakeley
Arnold-Forster, a Liberal Unionist member of parliament, who eventually became a member of Arthur
Balfour's cabinet.
Forster became known as a practical philanthropist early. In 1846-1847 he accompanied
his father to Ireland as distributor of the Friends' relief fund for the famine in Connsemara, and the state of the country made a deep impression on him. He gradually began
to take an active part in public affairs by speaking and lecturing.
In politics
In 1859 he stood as Liberal candidate for Leeds, but was beaten. But he was highly esteemed in the West Riding, and in 1861 he was returned unopposed for Bradford. He was again returned again in 1865 (unopposed) and in 1868 (at the head
of the poll).
He took a prominent part in parliament in the debates on the American Civil War,
and in 1868 was made Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies
in Lord John Russell's ministry. It was then that he first became a
prominent advocate of imperial federation. In 1866 his attitude on parliamentary
reform attracted a good deal of attention.
Directly after the Reform Bill had passed, Forster and Edward Cardwell brought in Education Bills in
1867 and 1868. In 1868, when the Liberal party returned to office, Forster was appointed Vice-president of the Council, with the duty of preparing a government
measure for national education. The Elementary Education Bill was
introduced on February 17, 1870 and school boards were set up with elected representatives (for example, Charles Reed in London) the same year where possible. The religious difficulty at once came to the front.
The Manchester Education Union and the National
Education League/Birmingham Education League had already formulated in the provinces the two opposing theories, the former
standing for the preservation of denominational interests, the latter advocating secular rate-aided education as the only means
of protecting Nonconformity against the Church.
The Dissenters were by no means satisfied with Forster's "conscience clause" as contained
in the bill, and they regarded him, the ex-Quaker, as a deserter from their own side. They resented the "25th clause," permitting
school boards to pay the fees of needy children at denominational schools out of the rates, as an insidious attack upon
themselves. By March 14, when the second reading came on, the controversy had assumed
threatening proportions; and Mr Dixon, the Liberal member for Birmingham and chairman of the National Education League, moved an
amendment, the effect of which was to prohibit all religious education in board schools. The government made its rejection a
question of confidence, and the amendment was withdrawn; but the result was the insertion of the Cowper-Temple clause as a compromise before the bill passed. The bill of 1870, imperfect as it was,
established at last some approach to a system of national education in England.
Forster's next important work was in passing the Ballot Act 1872. In 1874 he was
again returned for Bradford. In 1875, when Gladstone "retired," Forster was strongly
supported for the leadership of the Liberal party, but declined to be nominated. In the same year he was elected to the
Royal Society, and made Lord Rector of Aberdeen
University.
In 1876, when the Eastern question was looming large, he visited Serbia and Turkey, and his subsequent speeches on the subject were marked by
moderation. On Gladstone's return to office in 1880 he was made Chief Secretary for
Ireland. He carried the Compensation for Disturbance Bill through the Commons, only to see it thrown out in the Lords. On
January 24, 1881 he introduced a new Coercion Bill in the House
of Commons, to deal with the growth of the Land League, and in the course of
his speech declared it to be "the most painful duty" he had ever had to perform. The bill passed, among its provisions being one
enabling the Irish government to arrest without trial persons "reasonably suspected" of crime and conspiracy.
The Irish party used every opportunity to oppose this act, and Forster was kept constantly on the move between Dublin and
London, conducting his campaign and defending it in the House of Commons. He was nicknamed "Buckshot" by the Nationalist press,
on the supposition that he had ordered its use by the police when firing on a crowd. On October
13 Charles Stewart Parnell was arrested, and soon after the Land League
was proclaimed. From that time Forster's life was in danger, and he had to be escorted by mounted police in Dublin. Several plans to murder him were frustrated by the merest accidents.
On May 2 1882, Gladstone announced that the government intended
to release Parnell and his fellow-prisoners in Kilmainham, and that both Lord Cowper and Forster had in consequence resigned; and
the following Saturday Forster's successor, Lord Frederick Cavendish, was murdered
in Phoenix Park, Dublin.
During the remaining years of his life, Forster's political record covered various interesting subjects, but his efforts in
Ireland threw them all into shadow. He died on the eve of the introduction of the First Home Rule Bill, to which he was completely opposed.
References
External links
Offices held
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