Case, William Arthur (1818 – 1872)

William Arthur Case M.A. (7 December 1818 – 24 January 1872) was a Shropshire-born schoolmaster, who lived at 20 Upper Gower Street, London.

Case was an early member of the Board of Management of the Hahnemann Homeopathic Hospital, established in April 1850 at 39 Bloomsbury Square, London. He was a colleague of William Henry Ashurst, John More Douglas, George Henry Fletcher, Peter Gardner, Joseph Glover, Edward Hunt, Thomas H. Johnstone, Sir James Haughton Langston, William Leaf, Charles Powell Leslie, Augustus Henry Moreton M.P., John Miller, James More Molyneaux, Sir Samuel Morton Peto, Abel Peyton Phelps, Frederick Sandoz, Frederick J. Smith, William Stephenson, Samuel Sugden, Allan Templeton, Major Charles William Tyndale, William Warne, Charles Wilkinson, and James Wilson M.P.

William Arthur Case was born in Shrewsbury, Shropshire in December, 1818, to the Reverend George Augustus Case (1773 – 1831) and Esther Ansell (1789 – 1858). He was descended from Reverend Thomas Case M.A., one of the two thousand ejected dissenting ministers who were forced to give up their livings as a result of the Act of Uniformity in 1662.

Unable to attend Oxford or Cambridge, in 1839 William Arthur Case graduated with a B.A. in Classics from University College, London. He took his M.A. there in 1842, and in 1845 was elected a Fellow of the College.

Case had a gift for teaching, having his own private pupils as early as age 14. In 1839 he became tutor to two of the sons of banker Sir Benjamin Heywood, accompanying them to Eton, where he remained until 1842.

In 1847 William Arthur Case married Sarah Wolridge Stansfeld (1821 – 1894), daughter of Halifax County Court judge, James Stansfeld. They had six daughters: Emma Mabel (1851 – 1934), Sarah Wolryche (1853 – 1944), Catharine Jessie (1855 – 1937), Esther Maria (1858 – 1939), Emma Sophia (1860 – 1947), and the classicist and women’s rights advocate Janet Elizabeth (1863 – 1937).

Case opened a boarding house for scholars attending University College School, and in 1849 he was appointed Assistant Master at the School. In 1863 he became the School’s Vice-master, a post he held until ill-health obliged him to retire in 1866.

William Arthur Case also served as honorary secretary of University College itself from 1850 until the early 1860s.

In September, 1866, William Arthur Case realized his longstanding objective of opening his own co-educational school at Hampstead, called Heath Brow School.

After William Arthur Case died in January, 1872, his wife and daughters continued to operate the school. It remained open until 1886, with a number of its female scholars, including Case’s daughter Janet, matriculating into the University of London.