William Arnold-Forster

William Edward Arnold-Forster (1886–1951) was an English author, artist, educator, gardener, Labour Party politician and retired naval officer. He 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. The Arnold-Forsters were instrumental in founding Gordonstoun School in 1934, and Will was the first chairman of the board of governors.

Life

William ("Will") 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. He had three older brothers, Mervyn (Merv), John and Christopher (Kit). He inherited an interest in art from his mother, studying at the Slade School (1905–1908). There, he won several prizes. He 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.

After the war, he married Katharine ("Ka") Laird Cox, who was then working at the Admiralty and moved with her to Zennor on the Cornish coast, near St Ives, where they purchased 'The Eagle’s Nest'. Arnold-Forster was an enthusiastic gardener, and the garden that he created at 'The Eagle’s Nest' was described as spectacular. He also worked on the Memorial Garden at St Ives, and with the sculptor Barbara Hepworth on her garden there. During World War II, Will served in the Home Guard. He died in 1951 at the age of 65.

Family

Will Arnold-Forster and Ka Cox had one son, Mark Arnold-Forster (1920–1981), an author and journalist. Will and Ka were interested in progressive education, and when Mark was seven, they sent him to boarding school in Switzerland, and two years later to Schule Schloss Salem, a boarding school in Salem, Baden-Württemberg run by Kurt Hahn. With the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany, Hahn, a Jew, was imprisoned, but was released with the assistance of the Arnold-Forsters and fled to Scotland in 1933. The Arnold-Forsters with Hahn were then instrumental in the founding of Gordonstoun, of which Arnold-Foster was the first chairman of the board of directors,