Sir Basil Malcolm Arthur, 5th Baronet (18 September 1928 – 1 May 1985) served as Speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives from 1984 to 1985.

[2] He returned to New Zealand and found work as a hotel manager and on 5 January 1950 he married Elizabeth Rita Wells in Auckland.

[2] Despite disliking the title he decided to keep it in case his eldest son, Stephen, wished to claim it and planned to take him to Kent to visit his ancestors' former land estates.

[3] In 1957 Arthur decided to stand for parliament himself and unsuccessfully contested the Labour nomination for the Waitomo electorate, losing to Vic Haines the Mayor of Te Kūiti.

He was reluctant to be called "Sir", but the Speaker at the time, Ronald Algie, said that refusing this honorific would be disrespectful to the Queen.

[9] When David Lange replaced Rowling as leader in 1983 Arthur was dropped from the front bench and lost the Agriculture and Forestry portfolios.

[10] By this time many parliamentary colleagues believed Arthur, with his length of service and poor health, belonged to the party's "old school of politicians".

[11] The then Prime Minister, David Lange recalled in My Life (2005) that Arthur was gravely ill in Wellington Hospital, and if he resigned from the member's superannuation scheme before he died (but not otherwise) his estate would get a lump-sum payment.

[1] The Timaru District Council named a recreation reserve, located in Washdyke, Sir Basil Arthur Park in his honour.

He embarrassingly dropped the ring during the ceremony where his daughter-in-law Carolyn was the bridesmaid and Labour MP Bob Tizard was the best man.