Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 2.djvu/63

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Foster
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Foster

language for the purpose (Truro, 1867), and in 1876, with Wiiliam Galloway, he published a translation from the French of Prof. Gallon's treatise on mining. His principal work was a textbook on 'Ore and Stone Mining' (1894; 7th edit, revised by Prof. S. Herbert Cox, 1910), and he wrote the article on Mining in the 9th edition of the 'Encyclopædia Britannica.' He was also author of a textbook on 'Mining and Quarrying' (1903) and of numerous memoirs and papers in the 'Proceedings' of the Geological and other scientific societies and in various scientific periodicals. From 1894 he edited the mineral statistics issued by the home office, and the annual reports on mines and quarries. While he achieved considerable reputation as a geologist and metallurgist, it was as a miner and a mining expert that he was really eminent. Though at the beginning of his inspectorship his energy in imposing novel restrictions and in insisting on the reform and improvement of existing methods was little appreciated by the mining community, he ultimately won in both his districts the esteem alike of miners and mine-owners.

He married in 1872 his cousin, Sophia Chevallier, second daughter of Arthur F. Tompson of Belton, Suffolk, and had one son and two daughters. His widow received a civil list pension of 100l. in Aug. 1904.

[Proc. Roy. Soc. lxxv. 371 (by Prof. Judd); Nature, 28 April 1904 (by Hilary Bauerman); Journal of Soc. of Arts, 29 April 1904 (by the present writer); Trans. American Soc. of Mining Engineers, vol. 35 (1904), p. 662; Engineer, 22 April 1904.]

H. T. W.


FOSTER, JOSEPH (1844–1905), genealogist, born at Sunniside, Sunderland, on 9 March 1844, was eldest of five sons and three daughters of Joseph Foster, a woollen draper of Bishop Wearmouth, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Emanuel Taylor. Myles Birket Foster, founder of the London bottling firm of M. B. Foster & Sons, was his grandfather, and Myles Birket Foster [q. v. Suppl. I], the water-colour painter, was his uncle. His ancestors were members of the Society of Friends from the earliest times until the resignation of his father a few years before his birth. Educated privately at North Shields, Sunderland and Newcastle, Foster began business in London as a printer, but soon abandoned it for genealogical research, to which he had devoted his leisure from an early age. To that pursuit he henceforth gave up all his time with self-denying enthusiasm and industry.

Foster's genealogical works began with pedigrees of the quaker families of Foster and Forster (1862; 2nd edit. 1871); of Wilson of High Wray and Kendal (1871); and of Fox of Falmouth with the Crokers of Lineham (1872), all of which were printed privately. There followed later pedigrees of the families of Pease, Harris, and Backhouse, as well as of Raikes.

In 1873 he projected his 'Pedigrees of the County Families of England.' The first volume, 'Lancashire Families,' appeared in that year, and it was followed by three volumes of 'Yorkshire Families' (1874). He printed 'Glover's Visitation of Yorkshire' in 1875; in 1877 there appeared his 'Stemmata Britannica,' part only of a collection of pedigrees of untitled gentry, and in 1878 the 'Pedigree of Sir John Pennington, Fifth Lord Muncaster.'

In 1879 he published, in collaboration with Mr. Edward Bellasis, Blue Mantle, his laborious 'Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage.' Foster pursued the main methods of Sir Bernard Burke's work; but aiming at greater accuracy, he exposed, mythical ancestries, and placed in a section entitled 'Chaos' baronetcies of doubtful creation. Foster's undertaking was violently attacked by Stephen Tucker, Rouge Croix, in the 'Genealogist,' iv. 64, on account, principally, of its heraldry, and Foster and his colleague Bellasis defended themselves in a pamphlet, 'A Review of a Review of Joseph Foster's Peerage.' 'The Peerage,' which was re-isssued in 1881, 1882, and 1883, was ultimately amalgamated with Lodge's, which adopted much of its form.

In 1881 Foster established a periodical entitled 'Collectanea Genealogica et Heraldica,' which appeared at irregular intervals up to 1888. There he printed serially transcriptions of legal and other registers and genealogical researches, some of which (i.e. 'Members of Parliament, Scotland') (1882) were re-issued separately, and others were left uncompleted. In the periodical there also appeared much trenchant criticism and exposure of current genealogical myths, in which Foster had the assistance of Dr. J. Horace Round.

Meanwhile Foster, with heroic labour, transcribed the admission registers of the Inns of Court, and the institutions to livings since the Reformation. Some fruits of this labour were published in 'Men at the Bar: a Biographical Hand-List' (1888); 'Admissions to Gray's Inn, and Marriages in Gray's Inn Chapel' (1889); and 'Index Ecclesiasticus: or Alphabetical Lists of all Ecclesiastical