The Hon. William Munning Arnold (10 October 1819 – 1 March 1875) was an Australian politician and a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly

New South Wales Legislative Assembly

The Legislative Assembly, or lower house, is one of the two chambers of the Parliament of New South Wales, an Australian state. The other chamber is the Legislative Council. Both the Assembly and Council sit at Parliament House in the state capital, Sydney...

 from 1856 until his death. He held numerous ministerial positions between 1860 and 1865 including Secretary for Public Works and Secretary for Lands

Land and Property Management Authority

The News South Wales Land and Property Information, a division of the Department of Finance and Services in the Government of New South Wales, is responsible for land titles, property information, valuation, surveying, and mappping and spatial information in New South Wales.The division is led by...

. He was the Speaker

Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly

The Speaker of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly is the presiding officer of the Legislative Assembly, New South Wales's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is Shelley Hancock, who was elected on 3 May 2011...

 between 1865 and 1875.

Early life

Arnold was born in the village of Ellough

Ellough

Ellough is a parish in the English county of Suffolk located approximately south-east of Beccles. The area is sparsely populated with a mid-2005 population estimate of 40. Neighbouring villages include North Cove, Weston, Sotterley and Henstead...

 in Suffolk, England and was the son of an Anglican clergyman. He was educated at home and then at private schools in Lowestoft

Lowestoft

Lowestoft is a town in the English county of Suffolk. The town is on the North Sea coast and is the most easterly point of the United Kingdom. It is north-east of London, north-east of Ipswich and south-east of Norwich...

 and High Wycombe

High Wycombe

High Wycombe , commonly known as Wycombe and formally called Chepping Wycombe or Chipping Wycombe until 1946,is a large town in Buckinghamshire, England. It is west-north-west of Charing Cross in London; this figure is engraved on the Corn Market building in the centre of the town...

. Arnold migrated to Australia in 1839 and made a substantial fortune from investments in the pastoral industry and gold trading. He invested in a number of large properties on the Paterson River

Paterson River

The Paterson River, a tributary of the Hunter River, is a significant river in the Hunter Region of New South Wales, Australia. Its headwaters are in the Barrington Tops National Park and it flows to join the Hunter River between Hinton and Morpeth...

 in which he drowned during major flooding in 1875.

State Parliament

Arnold was elected at the 1856 election to the first parliament of New South Wales after the granting of responsible government. With Richard Jones and Samuel Gordon

Samuel Gordon (Australian politician)

Samuel Gordon was an Australian merchant, pastoralist and politician. He was a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council between 1861 and 1882. He was also a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly for three terms from 1856 until 1860.-Early life:Gordon was the son of an Irish...

, he was elected to the three member seat of Durham

Electoral district of Durham

Durham was an electoral district for the Legislative Assembly in the Australian state of New South Wales, named after Durham County, which lies on the north side of the Hunter River. From 1856 to 1859, it elected three members simultaneously by voters casting three votes with the three leading...

. He retained this seat until 1859 and then represented the seat of Paterson until his death. He was noted for his radically democratic views on electoral reform including universal manhood suffrage and the distribution of electorates based on population.

Government

Arnold was appointed to the position of Secretary of Public Works in the first ministry of John Robertson and the third and fourth ministries of Charles Cowper

Charles Cowper

Sir Charles Cowper, KCMG was an Australian politician and the Premier of New South Wales on five different occasions from 1856 to 1870....

. He also served briefly as Secretary for Lands in Cowper's fourth government

Speakership

Arnold served as the Assembly's fourth Speaker between 1865 and 1875. He was noted for his objectivity and fairness as speaker and his decisions were rarely questioned by either the government or opposition.