Matthew Arnold’s Dover Beach and Self-Dependence Matthew Arnold was born at Laleham on the Thames, the eldest son of Thomas Arnold, in 1822. He had to live in the shadow of his famous father who ran the Rugby school beginning in 1828. He went to the Rugby school since age 6, but his achievement were inconsistent. He got a scholarship to Oxford anyway in 1841. School came easy to him there. His father died in 1842 of a heart attack. In 1844 he was awarded second honors in Oriel College Oxford, to the disbelief of his friends. That year he also taught at Rugby for one year. He later came back to Oxf