Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 20.djvu/20

 appointed to the post, founded at his suggestion, of chaplain to the British embassy, which he continued to hold until his death. In 1824 the Earl of Bridgewater made him his chaplain. Forster died at Paris on 18 Feb. 1828, after a lingering illness, and was buried in the cemetery of Père la Chaise in that city. He left a widow and three daughters, for whose benefit were published ‘Sermons preached at the Chapel of the British Embassy, and at the Protestant Church of the Oratoire, in Paris, by Edward Forster, with a short Account of his Life’ [edited by Lavinia Forster], 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1828. Forster had been elected F.R.S. on 10 Dec. 1801, and F.S.A. previously. He was also an active supporter of the Royal Institution from its commencement, was appointed honorary librarian by the directors, and was engaged to deliver lectures there during three following seasons.

[Gent. Mag. xcviii. pt. i. 566.] 

FORSTER, EDWARD, the younger (1765–1849), botanist, was born at Wood Street, Walthamstow, 12 Oct. 1765, being the third and youngest son of Edward the elder [q. v.] and Susanna Forster. He received his commercial education in Holland, and entered the banking-house of Forster, Lubbocks, Forster, & Clarke. He began the study of botany in Epping Forest at fifteen, and in conjunction with his two brothers he afterwards cultivated in his father's garden almost all the herbaceous plants then grown, and contributed the county lists of plants to Gough's edition of Camden (1789). In 1796 he married Mary Jane, only daughter of Abraham Greenwood, who died in 1846 without surviving issue. Forster was one of the early fellows of the Linnean Society, founded in 1788, was elected treasurer in 1816, and vice-president in 1828. With his brothers he was one of the chief founders of the Refuge for the Destitute in Hackney Road. He died of cholera, 23 Feb. 1849, two days after inspecting the refuge on the occasion of an outbreak of that disease. He was buried in the family vault at Walthamstow. He was exceedingly temperate and methodical, shy, taciturn, and exclusive, rising early to work among his extensive collections of obscure British plants before banking hours, and devoting his evenings to reading and to his large herbarium, collected in many parts of England. He resided chiefly at Hale End, Walthamstow, but at the time of his death at the Ivy House, Woodford, Essex. In 1817 he had printed a catalogue of British birds (Catalogus avium in insulis Britannicis habitantium cura et studio Eduardi Forsteri jun., London, 1817, 8vo, pp. 48), but seems subsequently to have devoted his attention to plants exclusively. He printed various papers on critical species of British plants in the ‘Transactions’ of the Linnean Society, the ‘Annals and Magazine of Natural History,’ and the ‘Phytologist,’ and collected material towards a flora of Essex. His knowledge of British plants was critically exact, several species being described by him in the ‘Supplement to English Botany’ (1834). At his death his library and herbarium were sold, the latter being purchased by Robert Brown and presented to the British Museum. There is an oil painting of Forster by Eddis at the Linnean Society, and a lithograph by T. H. Maguire, published in the year of his death.

[Gent. Mag. 1849, xxxii. 432; Nichols's Illustrations, viii. 554; Proc. Linn. Soc. ii. 39; Epistolarium Forsterianum, 1850, vol. ii. p. xv, Bruges, privately printed; Gibson's Flora of Essex, 1862, p. 448.] 

FORSTER, GEORGE (d. 1792), traveller, a civil servant of the East India Company on the Madras establishment, undertook and safely accomplished in 1782 the then remarkable feat of travelling from Calcutta overland into Russia. His journey took him through Cashmere, Afghanistan, Herat, Khorassan, and Mazanderan to the Caspian Sea, which he crossed. While in England he prepared for the press ‘Sketches of the Mythology and Customs of the Hindoos’ (8vo, 84 pp., 1785), and on his return to India he wrote an account of his journey, the first volume of which was published at Calcutta in 1790. In 1792 he was sent on an embassy to the Mahrattas, and died at Nagpore. The narrative of his journey was completed from his papers, and published in London by an unknown editor as ‘A Journey from Bengal to England through the Northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia, and into Russia by the Caspian Sea’ (2 vols. 4to, 1798). He is often confused with Johann Georg Adam Forster [q. v.], as, for example, in ‘Monthly Review,’ December 1798 (xxvii. 361n.), where, in a review of the journey, he is described as the son of Johann Reinhold Forster.

[Authorities in text.] 

FORSTER, HENRY PITTS (1766?–1815), orientalist, entered the Bengal service of the East India Company 7 Aug. 1783 (we may thus place his birth in or about 1766), became collector of Tipperah in 1793, and registrar of Diwani Adalat of the twenty-four Pargannas in 1794. To Forster belongs the credit of publishing the first English work of lexicography for the Bengali language. The first part of this book, the ‘English and