Alfred Arnold

[4] From 1863 he lived in suburban London before removing to Yorkshire to manage the business of James Royston, Son & Company of Shroggs Mill, Halifax.

[10] Involving himself in local politics, in the Conservative cause and as a determined opponent of Irish Home Rule, he was elected a councillor for Halifax’s South Ward in 1878 and remained one until 1896.

[18] One of the defeated candidates was the Liberal James Booth, four times Mayor of Halifax, who some months earlier had sued Arnold for slander and obtained judgment against him for £85 damages.

[30] Although a barrister, Arnold did not practise as such except on the single occasion in 1902 when, as junior counsel to Balfour Browne KC, he appeared before a Select Committee of the House of Commons to argue in favour of the Halifax Corporation Bill which provided for enlargement of the borough’s limits, extension of its tramways, and various other local matters.

[36] He had previously, at a well-publicised Conservative Union meeting, warned that ratepayers’ refusal to pay rates of which they did not approve would lead to "absolute chaos".

He had withheld payment in protest at what he considered the Borough Education Committee’s unfair treatment of voluntary schools and freely admitted that he had no legal excuse for non-payment.

[38] He was re-elected President of the Halifax Conservative Union in 1901 and continued in that office until his death,[39] and was a prominent speaker on issues that he regarded as important for local commerce and industry such as trade unionism, workmen’s compensation and, in particular, tariff reform[40] He was elected President of the Halifax Chamber of Commerce in 1907,[41] and was Chairman of James Royston Son & Company Limited (incorporated in 1898) until his death when the company’s employees numbered more than three hundred.

[42] He had been in indifferent health for some time before undergoing a medical procedure on the morning of 31 October 1908 and he died that afternoon at his home, Woodroyde, Savile Park, Halifax.

The son, Charles Comber Arnold (1856-1913), was called to the Bar eighteen months after his father, joined him on the Halifax bench of magistrates in 1892, and worked with him in the wire business.

Alfred Huntriss Arnold, West Yorkshire Regiment, died at the age of 24 in 1916 from wounds sustained a year earlier during the Battle of Neuve Chapelle.