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]

He was one of the earliest advocates of slave emancipation, and one of the first members of the committee of 1788 against the slave trade. He also joined societies for the suppression of climbing chimney-sweepers, for diffusing knowledge about capital punishments, for affording refuge to the destitute, and for repressing cruelty to animals, being conscientiously opposed to field sports. He also framed the child-stealing act.^[2]

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

Works

He was attached to the study 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]

References

Attribution

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Forster, Benjamin Meggot". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.