An advocate for vegetarianism, he played a significant role in the West London Food Reform Society alongside figures like Mahatma Gandhi.

[2] He became a schoolmaster, at King Edward's School, Birmingham, and in 1856 went to India as Principal of the Deccan College at Poona, a post which he held for seven years, which includes a period during the mutiny of 1857, when he was able to render services for which he was publicly thanked by Lord Elphinstone in the Bombay Council.

Returning to England in 1861 he worked as a journalist on the staff of The Daily Telegraph, a newspaper with which he continued to be associated as editor for more than forty years, and of which he later became editor-in-chief.

[3] Arnold must also be credited with the first idea of a great trunk line traversing the entire African continent, for in 1874 he first employed the phrase "Cape to Cairo railway" subsequently popularised by Cecil Rhodes.

His chief work with this object is The Light of Asia, or The Great Renunciation, a poem of eight books in blank verse which was translated into various languages such as Hindi (tr.

In it, in Arnold's own words, he attempted 'by the medium of an imaginary Buddhist votary to depict the life and character and indicate the philosophy of that noble hero and reformer, Prince Gautama of India, founder of Buddhism'.

The poem was subjected to two lines of criticism: it was held by Oriental scholars to give a false impression of Buddhist doctrine; while, on the other, the suggested analogy between Sakyamuni and Jesus offended the taste of some devout Christians.

He was vice-president of the West London Food Reform Society, a vegetarian group based in Bayswater, founded in 1891, with Josiah Oldfield as president and Mahatma Gandhi as secretary.