William Edward Forster, an English statesman, born at Bradpole, Dorsetshire, July 11, 1818. His father was a minister of the society of Friends, who died during an anti-slavery mission to Tennessee. He married in 1850 a daughter of Dr. Arnold of Rugby, became prominent as a Bradford manufacturer and an ultra-liberal politician, and has represented that borough in parliament since 1861. He was under-secretary for the colonies from November, 1865, to July, 1866; and in December, 1868, he was appointed one of the charity commissioners and vice president of the committee of council on education, on which occasion he was made privy councillor. In 1870 he was the chief promoter of the new education law, and in 1871 of the ballot law.