Josiah Forster

Josiah Forster

Josiah in the centre
Born 1782[1]
Tottenham[2]
Died 1870[1]
Resting place Tottenham Friends' burial ground[3]
Nationality English
Education Forster's school (founded by his grandfather)[2]
Occupation Teacher and writer
Known for Slavery abolitionist, Bible society
Religion Quaker
Spouse(s) 1.Rachel Wilson
2.Sarah Dillworth[3]
Children one (died a baby)
Parent(s) William Forster (1747–1824)and Elizabeth Hayward (1759–1837)[3]
Relatives William (brother), William Edward (nephew)

Josiah Forster (1782 – 27 June 1870)[3] was an English teacher and philanthropist. He was an early member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839[1] and a supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society. Both he and his wife were senior figures in the British Quakers.

Biography

Forster was born in 1782. He became a teacher at the school his grandfather, also Josiah Forster (1693-1763), had founded in Tottenham. The school started in 1752 in the ballroom of their grandfather's house and was called Forster's School.[4] His first wife, Rachel (née Wilson) was over thirty years older than he was, and died in 1801.[3]

Forster started another school in 1805 in Southgate that eventually moved to Tottenham in 1820. He ran this school until 1826 when he decided to devote more time to his Quaker interests. His wife had already been made a minister in 1810, and shortly afterward he began sitting on Quaker committees; in 1817 he became an elder of the church.[3] He campaigned for anti-slavery and worked for the British and Foreign Bible Society.[2] He held the senior position of clerk to the Annual meeting of British Quakers from 1820 to 1831.[3]

In 1838, Forster accompanied Elizabeth Fry on her tour and inspection of prisons in France.[5]

Forster sat on a committee of Quaker elders in 1836-7 who unsuccessfully tried to heal a schism in the Quaker church caused by the Beaconite Controversy. The controversy was named after a book published in January 1835 called A Beacon to the Society of Friends[6] which was written by Isaac Crewdson, a leader to the Manchester Quaker meeting. The controversy, which related to evangelism in the society, eventually led to the resignation of Crewdson and about 300 similarly minded people across the country.[7][8]

The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was mainly a Quaker society founded in the eighteenth century by Thomas Clarkson. Slavery had in theory been made illegal in 1807 in the British Empire. Following the Reform Act, William Wilberforce was able to get legislation through parliament. In 1838 legislation freed the slaves who had been relabelled apprentices. As a result, in August 1838 800,000 people in the British empire became free.[9]

Isaac Crewdson (Beaconite) writer Samuel Jackman Prescod - Barbadian Journalist William Morgan from Birmingham William Forster - Quaker leader George Stacey - Quaker leader William Forster - Anti-Slavery ambassador John Burnet -Abolitionist Speaker William Knibb -Missionary to Jamaica Joseph Ketley from Guyana George Thompson - UK & US abolitionist J. Harfield Tredgold - British South African (secretary) Josiah Forster - Quaker leader Samuel Gurney - the Banker's Banker Sir John Eardley-Wilmot Dr Stephen Lushington - MP and Judge Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton James Gillespie Birney - American John Beaumont George Bradburn - Massachusetts politician George William Alexander - Banker and Treasurer Benjamin Godwin - Baptist activist Vice Admiral Moorson William Taylor William Taylor John Morrison GK Prince Josiah Conder Joseph Soul James Dean (abolitionist) John Keep - Ohio fund raiser Joseph Eaton Joseph Sturge - Organiser from Birmingham James Whitehorne George Bennett Richard Allen Stafford Allen William Leatham, banker William Beaumont Sir Edward Baines - Journalist Samuel Lucas Samuel Fox, Nottingham grocer Louis Celeste Lecesne Jonathan Backhouse Samuel Bowly William Dawes - Ohio fund raiser Robert Kaye Greville - Botanist Joseph Pease, railway pioneer M.M. Isambert (sic) Mary Clarkson -Thomas Clarkson's daughter in law William Tatum Saxe Bannister - Pamphleteer Richard Davis Webb - Irish Nathaniel Colver - American not known John Cropper - Most generous Liverpudlian Thomas Scales William James William Wilson Thomas Swan Edward Steane from Camberwell William Brock Edward Baldwin Jonathon Miller Capt. Charles Stuart from Jamaica Sir John Jeremie - Judge Charles Stovel - Baptist Richard Peek, ex-Sheriff of London John Sturge Elon Galusha Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor Rev. Isaac Bass Henry Sterry Peter Clare -; sec. of Literary & Phil. Soc. Manchester J.H. Johnson Thomas Price Joseph Reynolds Samuel Wheeler William Boultbee Daniel O'Connell - "The Liberator" William Fairbank John Woodmark William Smeal from Glasgow James Carlile - Irish Minister and educationalist Rev. Dr. Thomas Binney John Howard Hinton - Baptist minister John Angell James - clergyman Joseph Cooper Dr. Richard Robert Madden - Irish Thomas Bulley Isaac Hodgson Edward Smith Sir John Bowring - diplomat and linguist John Ellis C. Edwards Lester - American writer Tapper Cadbury - Businessman not known Thomas Pinches David Turnbull - Cuban link Edward Adey Richard Barrett John Steer Henry Tuckett James Mott - American on honeymoon Robert Forster (brother of William and Josiah) Richard Rathbone John Birt Wendell Phillips - American M. L'Instant from Haiti Henry Stanton - American Prof William Adam Mrs Elizabeth Tredgold - British South African T.M. McDonnell Mrs John Beaumont Anne Knight - Feminist Elizabeth Pease - Suffragist Jacob Post - Religious writer Anne Isabella, Lady Byron - mathematician and estranged wife Amelia Opie - Novelist and poet Mrs Rawson - Sheffield campaigner Thomas Clarkson's grandson Thomas Clarkson Thomas Morgan Thomas Clarkson - main speaker George Head Head - Banker from Carlisle William Allen John Scoble Henry Beckford - emancipated slave and abolitionist Use your cursor to explore (or Click "i" to enlarge)
Forster is on the left of centre near the front in this painting which is of the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention.[1] Move your cursor to identify him or click icon to enlarge
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A picture was commissioned that showed the delegates, including Josiah Forster, of the new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society which was formed in 1839. The painting captured this important international convention in June, 1840. The small extract shown here includes only Samuel Gurney a banker and fellow Quaker, Forster, and William Allen.[1] Also in this painting are Josiah's brothers, Robert and William Forster, many significant figures and Isaac Crewdson. This new society's aim was "The universal extinction of slavery and the slave trade and the protection of the rights and interests of the enfranchised population in the British possessions and of all persons captured as slaves."

In 1842-3 a schism developed in the Society of Friends in Salem in Iowa. The difference developed over the ways that the society should support slavery, which was still an important part of the American economy. A rival meeting house had been created, and a separate burial ground which was separated from the older Quaker burial ground by a mere two feet of space. Four delegates were sent from Britain: Forster, his brother William, George Stacey and John Allen. The group did not manage to heal the divide immediately but it was resolved by 1848.[10]

In 1849 the yearly meeting of the Quakers requested that representatives be sent to the rulers of the Christian nations.[11] Forster accompanied his brother, William, in 1853 when they and two others visited the American president, Franklin Pierce, and journeyed to spread the news around the governors of the southern American states. It was during this journey that William died and was buried in the Quaker town of Friendsville in Tennessee which was on the Underground Railroad.[12]

Josiah Forster and his wife, Sarah, established a trust in 1862, where four new cottages were to be given to poor widows aged 55 or over. The managing committee was to be four Quakers including his nephew, W.E. Forster M.P.[13]

He attended the annual meeting of the British Quakers until his death in 1870.

Bible societies

Forster was a long and valued supporter of the evangelical work of publishing and distributing Bibles. In 1862 he chaired a meeting at Bible House, Blackfriars, where it was agreed that £2000 be sent to the American Bible Society, the US sister society of the British and Foreign Bible Society.[14]

Education

Besides working at his grandfather's school, Forster helped to found the Grove House School in 1828 and he served on the management committee of the Lancasterian Boys' School in Tottenham.[2] Forster and his brother Robert were lifelong members of the London committee for Ackworth School.[3]

Memorials

Two almshouses in Tottenham are named after him. They provide four one-bedroomed sheltered homes for the elderly.[15]

Works

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Josiah Forster.
Wikisource has original text related to this article:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 National Portrait Gallery
  2. 1 2 3 4 Tottenham Quakers History, accessed 14 July 2008
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Edward H. Milligan, Josiah Forster in ‘Forster, William (1784–1854)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/46946 (subscription required for online access). Retrieved 17 July 2008.
  4. ↑ Tottenham Quakers - Education, accessed 16 July 2008
  5. ↑ E R Pitman (1884). Elizabeth Fry. Roberts Brothers, Boston. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  6. ↑ Crewdson, Isaac (1835). A Beacon to the Society of Friends. (unknown).
  7. ↑ The Beaconite Controversy, Anna Braithwaite Thomas, 1912
  8. ↑ Wake, Jehane (1997). Kleinwort Benson. Oxford University Press. p. 50. ISBN 0-19-828299-0.
  9. ↑ Biography of Joseph Sturge accessed 10 August 2008
  10. ↑ The Anti-Slavery Friends in Salem, Iowa, Lewis D. Savage, accessed 16 July 2008
  11. ↑ New International Encyclopedia
  12. ↑ Durwood Dunn, Cades Cove: The Life and Death of an Appalachian Community (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1988), 125.
  13. ↑ 'Tottenham: Charities for the poor', A History of the County of Middlesex: Volume 5: Hendon, Kingsbury, Great Stanmore, Little Stanmore, Edmonton Enfield, Monken Hadley, South Mimms, Tottenham (1976), pp. 376-380. url Date accessed: 14 July 2008.
  14. ↑ "A Pleasing Correspondence.; BRITISH AND FOREIGN BIBLE SOCIET.". The New York Times. April 6, 1862. Retrieved 2013-02-23.
  15. ↑ "Josiah Forsters Almhouses, South Tottenham". www.geograph.org.uk. Retrieved 10 February 2013.

Sources

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