William Delafield Arnold (7 April 1828 – 9 April 1859) was a British author and colonial administrator.
He was the fourth son of
Thomas Arnold who was the headmaster of
Rugby School
Rugby School is a public school (English independent boarding school for pupils aged 13–18) in Rugby, Warwickshire, England.
Founded in 1567 as a free grammar school for local boys, it is one of the oldest independent schools in Britain. ...
. His older brothers included the poet and critic
Matthew Arnold
Matthew Arnold (24 December 1822 – 15 April 1888) was an English poet and cultural critic who worked as an inspector of schools. He was the son of Thomas Arnold, the celebrated headmaster of Rugby School, and brother to both Tom Arnold, lit ...
and the literary scholar
Tom Arnold. Not long after his father's death in 1842, William, a pupil at Rugby School, was part of a committee of three, Arnold, W. W. Shirley and Frederick Hutchins,
that drew up the first written rules for football at Rugby School. These rules were approved in August 1845 and published that same year, becoming the first known published set of rules for any code of football.
[ Later, William served as an educational administrator (during 1855) in ]Punjab
Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...
, in British India
The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...
; as the first director of public instruction in the Punjab, he was responsible for implementing "Halkabandi" in that province.[Allender, Tim. "William Arnold and Experimental Education in North India, 1855–1859: An Innovative Model of State Schooling." Historical Studies in Education 16, no. 1 (2004): 63–83.] One of his most significant achievements was to enact a law separating church and state in public schools. As a result, Hindu pupils who attended these schools were no longer required to study the Bible or the Koran in public schools. This policy would later influence public schools in England as well. While working in India, William wrote several articles for "Fraser's Magazine," mainly concerning "the India question" (see bibliography). In 1853, William published a novel of Anglo-Indian
Anglo-Indian people fall into two different groups: those with mixed Indian and British ancestry, and people of British descent born or residing in India. The latter sense is now mainly historical, but confusions can arise. The