This mourning ring, enamelled in white, commemorates the death of a baby, Matthew Arnold, who died at the age of eight months in 1742. White, rather than black, enamel generally denotes that the deceased was a child, a spinster or a bachelor. From the early seventeenth to the end of the nineteenth century, testators left money in their wills to have rings with commemorative inscriptions made and distributed to their friends and families. Simple bands enamelled with the name and life dates of the deceased were frequently made, sometimes set with a gemstone or a bezel set with a rock crystal covering a symbol such as a coffin or initials in gold wire. In the later 18th century, rings followed neo-classical designs, their oval bezels often decorated with the same designs as funerary monuments such as urns, broken pillars and mourning figures.

Matthew Arnold was possibly the son of Matthew Arnold (born 1711) and his wife Charity. The elder Matthew was a merchant, an owner of boats, and a lighterman in Lowestoft in Suffolk, who moved his business to Wapping in London. Family records suggest that he was prominent in the re-building of Wapping Church.

There was possibly a distant relationship between the Arnolds of Wapping and Lowestoft and the family of Matthew Arnold, the 19th century poet, whose family also had its origins in Lowestoft.