Edward Arnold

Edward Arnold started his publishing house on New Year's Day 1890. He was the nephew of the poet and critic Matthew Arnold, grandson of the school reformer Dr Thomas Arnold, and had as an aunt the novelist Mrs. Humphrey Ward. The firm continued to develop along its several different channels. After World War I, Arnold himself continued to publish fiction, memoirs, and books on travel, religion and field sports. He also published in medicine, and it is testimony to his judgement that so many of the early books remain standard works. Edward Arnold retired in 1980, to be succeeded by his younger partners B.W.Fagan and F.P.Dunn. The principle change was a greater concentration on the academic and educational lists. Advanced science publishing, begun in the 1920s by Dunn, developed rapidly in the 1930s - a number of the titles are still in print in revised editions. But Hitler ensured that it was a short decade in publishing, as in much else, and the new momentum dwindled as staff were conscripted and paper rationed. The cloud had a silver lining in the shape of R.A.Butler's 1944 Education Act. That effectively provided the opportunity for Edward Arnold's substantial postwar involvement in secondary school publishing. The post-war period also witnessed continuing growth in medicine and science and the establishment of publishing in further education and in the humanities and the social sciences. The importance of export sales was appreciated more fully than ever and this led eventually to the establishment of a number of agencies and subsidiary companies throughout the world. Fagan and Dunn were succeeded by Tom Clare, who became chairman in 1982, but died three years later. He was followed by John Morgan, who retired as chairman in 1971 to be succeeded by Anthony Hamilton. The 1970s were, on the whole, good years for the company; publishing in all spheres - academic, medical, and educational - moved up a gear. But in the early 1980s there were prescient signs that the world was changing: it was becoming increasingly difficult for Arnold to remain independent. On 6 May 1987 Edward Arnold became the academic and professional division of Hodder & Stoughton - with the facilities and scale of operations to publish successfully in an increasingly competitive world.