Peter Le Neve Foster

Likeness printed in The Illustrated London News, 8 March 1879.

Peter Le Neve Foster (1809–1879) was an English barrister and mathematician. He is known as an innovative secretary of the Royal Society of Arts, and a pioneer photographer of the Calotype Club.

Life Born 17 August 1809, he was the son of Peter le Neve Foster of Lenwade, Norfolk. He was educated under Dr. Edward Valpy at Norwich grammar school. He went on to Trinity Hall, Cambridge, graduating in the mathematical tripos in 1830, and being elected Fellow of his college.

In 1836 Foster was called to the bar, and practised as a conveyancer. In 1853 he became secretary to the Society of Arts, as successor to George Grove, a post he held for the rest of his life. With Henry Cole, Charles Wentworth Dilke, and others, he was heavily involved with the organisation of the Great Exhibition of 1851 and its successor 1862 International Exhibition. He was also connected with work on several of the earlier exhibitions abroad.

1938 A. E. W. Mason, The Artistic Future of the Films 1942 Viscount Bennett, Empire Relations 1943 C. H. Desch, Magnesium 1944 Howard Walter Florey, Penicillin 1945 James Agate, A Moment in the History of the English Theatre 1948 Dilys Powell, The Development of the Film in Educational and Social Life 1950 (January) W. L. Andrews 1950 (December) A. C. Menzies, Modern Trends in Spectroscopy 1953 I. D. Wratten, A Century of Photography 1956 C. G. Mayer, Electronic Photography 1957 (January) A. R. N. Roberts, The Life and Work of W. R. Lethaby 1957 (November) Thomas Corbett, 2nd Baron Rowallan, Baden-Powell and the Boy Scouts 1959 Sylvia Townsend Warner, "Women as Writers" 1962 Henry George Miller, Priorities in Medicine 1964 Leon Radzinowicz, The Criminal in Society 1993 Sir Richard Luce, The role of the amateur in British arts