Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster (1855-1909), Politician and author

Sitter in 4 portraits
Hugh Oakeley Arnold-Forster was called to the bar in 1879 but, instead of practising law, became private secretary to his adoptive father, William Edward Forster, who was appointed Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1880. He joined Cassell & Co. in 1885, for whom he prepared educational manuals, including the Citizen Reader series. Arnold-Forster sat in Parliament as a Liberal Unionist MP for West Belfast from 1892 until 1906 and then as a Unionist member for Croydon from 1906 until his death. He served in Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Admiralty from 1900 until 1903 and as Secretary of State for War from 1903 to 1905, during which time he reorganised the War Office.