William Edward Forster

The Right Honourable William Edward Forster FRS
William Edward Forster in 1851
Chief Secretary for Ireland
In office 30 April 1880 – 6 May 1882
Monarch	Victoria
Prime Minister	William Ewart Gladstone
Preceded by	James Lowther
Succeeded by	Lord Frederick Cavendish
Personal details
Born	11 July 1818 (1818-07-11) Bradpole, Dorset
Died	6 April 1886 (1886-04-07) (aged 67)
Nationality	English
Political party	Liberal
Spouse(s)	Jane Arnold
Alma mater	None

William Edward Forster PC, FRS (11 July 1818 – 6 April 1886) was an English industrialist, philanthropist and Liberal Party . His staunch advocacy of lethal force against the Land League earned him the nickname Buckshot Forster.

Born to William and Ann Forster, Quaker parents at Bradpole, near Bridport in Dorset, Forster was educated at the Quaker 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 Burley-in-Wharfedale, Yorkshire. In 1850 he married Jane Martha, eldest daughter of Dr Thomas Arnold. She was not a Quaker and Forster was formally read out of meeting 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, W. D. Arnold, died in 1859, leaving four orphans, the Forsters adopted them as their own. One of the children was H. O. Arnold-Forster, a Liberal Unionist member of parliament, who eventually became a member of Balfour's cabinet. Another was Florence Arnold-Forster, who wrote a journal about family life and politics in the 1880s. The youngest child, Frances, compiled the first systematic study of English church dedications, published in 1899 as 'Studies in English Church Dedications or England's Patron Saints (London 1899)