Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Forster, Edward (1765-1849)
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.]