the list of 'Counsellors of the Empress,' a new order intended but never actually constituted to form an Indian privy council. A year later he was created C.I.E.
Great as was Arbuthnot's attachment to Lytton, he never hesitated to exercise his independent judgment. In December 1877 he strongly dissented, in the gloomy financial circumstances, from the reduction of the duties on salt in Bengal and northern India. He was always opposed to proposals for the reduction of the cotton duties, proposals which he assigned to political pressure from Lancashire. In March 1879, when he voted with the majority of his colleagues against a reduction, Lord Lytton exercised the rarely used power of overruling his council. The governor -general's action was only confirmed by the council of India in London on the casting-vote of the secretary of state, Lord Cranbrook (East India Cotton Duties, white paper, 1879). Arbuthnot endeavoured to prevent Sir Louis Cavagnari [q. v.] from going to Kabul with a small escort, and on 22 Oct. 1879 he minuted against what he regarded as the unduly aggressive spirit of Lytton's Afghan policy. Arbuthnot had the unanimous support of his colleagues in his conduct of the Vernacular Press Act, 1878, and he viewed with great disfavour its repeal, after he had left India, by Lord Ripon's government (19 Jan. 1882).
Returning to England on the expiry of his term in May 1880, Arbuthnot settled at Newtown House, Hampshire, where the rest of his life was spent. He was a generous benefactor of the locality, building a parish room and handing over the ownership of the village school, after enlargement, to the National Society. A strong conservative and churchman, he was for many years a member of the Winchester diocesan conference and chairman of the Andover division conservative association. But India still held the foremost place in his thoughts. In the spring of 1883 he accepted the chairmanship of the London committee to resist the famous 'Ilbert Bill' of Lord Ripon's government, and both by speech and pen he brought the issues to the notice of the public. On the nomination of Lord Cross he joined the India council on 1 Nov. 1887, and there, during his ten years' term, showed his old strength and independence. In 1894-5 he steadfastly deprecated, as concessions to Lancashire interests, the opposition to the reimposition of cotton import duties in India. He was most assiduous in his attendance at the India office, and spoke very frequently in the council discussions. When he retired, on 31 Oct. 1897, his service of the Crown had extended over fifty-five years, throughout which he showed unusual administrative powers and combined tact and courtesy with a spirit naturally somewhat despotic and impatient of control. He died in London of heart failure on 10 June 1907, and was buried in the churchyard at Newtown.
While at the India office Arbuthnot largely suspended the journalistic and literary work in which he had engaged on leaving India. But he remained a regular contributor to this Dictionary from the first volume, published in January 1885, writing in all fifty-three articles, including those on Clive, Wellesley, Canning, and Sir Thomas Munro. In 1881 he compiled a selection of the minutes of Munro whom in many points he resembled and wrote an introductory memoir, which was re-published separately in 1889. He also wrote a biography of Clive, published in 1898, for Mr. H. F. Wilson's 'Builders of Greater Britain' series. The recollections he was compiling at the time of his death were completed by his widow, and were published in 1910 under the title of 'Memories of Rugby and India.'
Arbuthnot married on 1 Feb. 1844 Frederica Eliza, daughter of General R. B. Fearon, G.B. She died in 1898, and on 6 June 1899 he married Constance, daughter of Sir William Milman, 3rd bart., niece of Robert Milman, bishop of Calcutta. There were no children of either union.
[Memories of Rugby and India, 1910; Lord Lytton's Indian Administration, 1899; The Times, 12 June 1907; Winchester Dioc. Chron., July 1907; Minutes of Dissent; unpublished sketches by Sir Charles Lawson, and private papers kindly lent by Lady Arbuthnot.]
ARBUTHNOT, FORSTER FITZGERALD (1833–1901), orientalist, born at Belgaum, Bombay presidency, on 21 May 1833, was second son of Sir Robert Keith Arbuthnot, second baronet, by his wife Anne, daughter of Field-marshal Sir John Forster Fitzgerald [q. v.]. He was educated privately on the Continent, at Anhalt and Geneva. Receiving a nomination to Haileybury in 1851, he went out to India in the Bombay civil service in 1853, where his father had served before him, and retired in 1878. His last appointment was that of collector of Bombay city and island, in which capacity he fixed the existing assessment on what are known as toka lands. He is remembered for driving a four-in-hand, and for his seaside
