Benjamin Meggot Forster

Benjamin Meggot Forster (16 January 1764 – 8 March 1829) was an English botanist and mycologist who wrote An Introduction to the Knowledge of Fungusses in 1820.

Life

He was the second son of Edward Forster the elder and his wife Susanna, and was born in Walbrook, London, on 16 January 1764. He was educated with his brothers Edward Forster the younger and Thomas Furly Forster[1] at Walthamstow, and became a member of the firm of Edward Forster & Sons, Russia merchants, but took little interest in business.[2]

Forster never married, living with his father and mother till their death, when he took a cottage called Scotts, at Hale End, Walthamstow. There he died 8 March 1829.[2]

Works

Forster was a student of science, especially botany and electricity. He executed many drawings of fungi, communicated various species to James Sowerby, and in 1820 published, with initials only, An Introduction to the Knowledge of Fungusses, pp. 20, with two plates. He contributed articles to the Gentleman's Magazine under various signatures, and is credited with eight scientific contributions to the Philosophical Magazine in the Royal Society's Catalogue. They deal with fungi, the electric column, and atmospheric phenomena. He invented the sliding portfolio, the atmospherical electroscope, and an orrery of perpetual motion (a failure).[2]

Interests

Forster joined in 1791 the committee of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, as did his brother Thomas Furly Forster.[3] He was a committee member of the Peace Society.[4]

Around 1802 Forster was a founder of the Society for the Suppression of Climbing Chimney-Sweepers (properly from 1803 the SSNCB, Society for Superseding the Necessity of Climbing Boys),[5] and took an interest in the inventions in the field of chimney sweeping, by George Smart and Joseph Glass.[6] In 1819 he reported to its committee on the case of two small girls as sweeps, working at Windsor Castle.[7] In fact four other members of the committee were from the Forster family.[8] He framed the Child Stealing Act 1814.[2] It was introduced as a bill in parliament on 17 May 1814, by William Smith.[9]

He also joined societies for diffusing knowledge about capital punishments, for affording refuge to the destitute, and for repressing cruelty to animals, being conscientiously opposed to field sports.[2]

References

1. Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Forster, Edward (1730-1812)" . Dictionary of National Biography. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
2. Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Forster, Benjamin Meggot" . Dictionary of National Biography. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
3. van der Linden, Wilhelmus Hubertus (1987). The International Peace Movement, 1815–1874. Tilleul Publications. p. 19. ISBN 9789080013414.
4. society, Peace (1822). First annual report of the committee of the Society for the promotion of permanent and universal peace. Sixth (Seventh) annual report. p. 4. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
5. Jackson, Lee (2014-11-28). Dirty Old London: The Victorian Fight Against Filth. Yale University Press. p. 218. ISBN 9780300210224. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
6. The Annual Biography and Obituary. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown. 1830. p. 406.
7. Cullingford, Benita (2001-04-17). British Chimney Sweeps: Five Centuries of Chimney Sweeping. New Amsterdam Books. p. 130. ISBN 9781461663256. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
8. Others involved on the committee were John Julius Angerstein, Thomas Charles Bunbury, Thomas Everett, Stephen Lushington, Matthew Montagu, John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and Henry Thornton. See Niels van Manen, The Climbing Boy Campaigns in Britain c. 1770-1840 (Ph.D. dissertation) p. 75 note 84.
9. Parliament, Great Britain. (1814). The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time. Hansard. p. 929. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
10. IPNI.  B.M.Forst.

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Stephen, Leslie, ed. (1889). "Forster, Benjamin Meggot". Dictionary of National Biography. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.