Edward Forster

Edward Forster the Younger (12 October 1765 – 23 February 1849) was an English banker and botanist.

Life He was born at Wood Street, Walthamstow, 12 October 1765, the third and youngest son of Edward Forster the elder and his wife Susanna; Thomas Furly Forster and Benjamin Meggot Forster were his brothers and Susanna Dorothy Forster his sister. He received a commercial education in the Netherlands, and entered the banking-house of Forster, Lubbocks, Forster, & Clarke.

Forster took up botany in Epping Forest at age 15. With his two brothers he later cultivated in his father's garden almost all the herbaceous plants then grown, and contributed county lists of plants to Gough's edition of Camden (1789). He 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 main founders of the Refuge for the Destitute in Hackney Road.

Works In 1817 Forster had printed a catalogue of British birds. Subsequently he concentrated on plants. He printed papers on critical species of British plants in the Transactions of the Linnean Society, the Annals and Magazine of Natural History, and The Phytologist.

Forster collected material on the flora of Essex. Several species described by him were in the Supplement to English Botany (1834).

Family In 1796 Forster married Mary Jane, only daughter of Abraham Greenwood, who died in 1846 without surviving issue.