FORSTER, WILLIAM EDWARD British statesman, was born of Quaker parents at Bradpole in Dorsetshire on July 11, 1818, and educated at the Friends' school at Totten ham. Becoming a woollen manufacturer at Bradford, Yorkshire (whence after his marriage he moved to Burley-in-Wharfedale), he became known as a practical philanthropist. In he accompanied his father to Ireland as distributor of the Friends' relief fund for the famine in Connemara, when the state of the country made a deep impression on him. He married in 185o Jane Martha, eldest daughter of Dr. Arnold of Rugby. Be ing childless they adopted the four orphans of Mrs. Forster's brother, William Arnold, when he died in 1859. One of these children, H. O. Arnold-Forster (1855-1909), the well-known Liberal-Unionist member of parliament, became a member of Balfour's cabinet; he was secretary to the Admiralty (19oo—o3) ; secretary of State for war (19o3—o5) ; and was the author of nu merous educational books.
In 1859 W. E. Forster stood as Liberal candidate for Leeds, and was beaten. In 1861 he was returned unopposed for Bradford and again in 1865 and 1868. In 1865 he was made under-secretary for the colonies in earl Russell's ministry, and became a promi nent advocate of imperial federation. In 1866 his attitude on parliamentary reform attracted a good deal of attention. He de manded universal education as the essential complement of an extension of the suffrage. Forster and Cardwell, as private mem bers in opposition, brought in Education Bills in 1867 and 1868; and in 1868, when the Liberal party returned to office, Forster was appointed vice-president of the council, with the duty of pre paring a government measure for national education. The Ele mentary Education Bill (see EDUCATION) was introduced on Feb. 17, 187o. The Dissenters were by no means satisfied with Fors ter's "conscience clause" as contained in the bill, and they re garded him, the ex-Quaker, as a deserter from their own side; while 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. The con troversy assumed threatening proportions, and Dixon, the Liberal member for Birmingham and chairman of the Education League, moved an amendment, the effect of which was to prohibit all re ligious education in board schools. The government made its rejection a question of confidence, and it was withdrawn; but the result was the insertion of the Cowper-Temple clause as a com promise. Extremists on both sides abused Forster, but it is to his enduring credit that the bill of 187o, imperfect as it was, estab lished some approgch to a system of national education in Eng land.
Forster's next important work was in passing the Ballot Act of 1872. In 1874 he was again returned for Bradford, in spite of Nonconformist attacks, and took his full share of the work of the Opposition Front Bench. In 1875, when Gladstone "retired," he was strongly supported for the leadership of the Liberal party, but declined to be nominated against Lord Hartington. On Glad stone's return to office in 188o he was made chief secretary for Ireland, with Lord Cowper as lord-lieutenant. He carried the Compensation for Disturbance Bill through the Commons, only to see it thrown out in the Lords, and his task was made more difficult by the consequent agitation. On Jan. 24, 1881, he intro duced, with reluctance, a new Coercion Bill in the House of Com mons, to deal with the growth of the Land League. The Irish party used every opportunity in and out of parliament for resent ing this act, and Forster was kept constantly on the move between Dublin and London, conducting his campaign against crime and anarchy and defending it in the House of Commons. He was nicknamed "Buckshot" by the Nationalist press, on the supposi tion that he had ordered its use by the police when firing on a crowd. After the arrest of Parnell (Oct. 13) Forster's life was in constant danger, and he had to be escorted by mounted police when he drove in Dublin. 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, and Burke were murdered in Phoenix Park. It was characteristic of the man that Forster at once offered to go back to Dublin temporarily as chief secretary, but the offer was declined. He delivered his fiercest attack on Parnell in the debate on the address (1883), charging him, not with directly planning or perpetrating outrages or murder, but with conniving at them. Forster died on April 6, 1886, on the eve of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill, to which he was stoutly opposed. He had found himself in an increasing degree at variance with Gladstonian Liberalism on other questions, for instance, as regards the Sudan and the Transvaal, nor was he inclined to tolerate the claims of the Caucus or the Birmingham programme. When the Redistribution Act divided Bradford into three constituencies, Forster was returned for the central division, but he never took his seat in the new parliament.
See T. Wemyss Reid, Life of the Right Hon. H. E. Forster.