In 1869 Forman married Laura, the daughter of William Christian Selle, by whom he had two sons and a daughter. He died at St. John’s Wood 15 June 1917 after a long illness. In 1919 his library was sold by his widow and executors and went to America. His elder brother, Alfred William Forman (1840–1925), man of letters, the second son of George Ellery Forman, was born in London 13 September 1840. He was educated at the Royal Naval School, New Cross, but left it for a mercantile career. He became interested in Richard Wagner, and translated the libretto of Der Ring des Nibelungen (privately printed 1873–1875, and favourably received by Wagner; published 1877 on the occasion of Wagner’s conducting concerts of his own music in London). Further translations from Wagner were Tristan und Isolde (1891), Parsifal (1899), and Tannhäuser (1919). This last was still unpublished at Forman’s death, as also were translations of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus, Le Rot s’amuse and other of Victor Hugo’s dramas, and Grillparzer’s Hero and Leander. Alfred and his brother Henry Buxton Forman published anonymously in the Civil Service Review (1874, privately reprinted in 1878 under their own names) a series of articles on ‘The Metre of Dante’s Divine Comedy discussed and exemplified’: discussed by Henry and exemplified by Alfred in dissyllabic-rhymed terza rima translations of Inferno i and iii, Purgatorio i, and Paradiso i. Beside his translations Forman produced a privately printed volume of Sonnets (1886). In 1876 he married Alma, daughter of Leigh Murray, well known as an actress in poetic drama. He died 17 December 1925, leaving a widow and one daughter.
[The Times, 19 June 1917, 23 December 1925; private information; personal knowledge.
FORREST, JOHN, first Baron Forrest, of Bunbury (1847–1918), Australian explorer and politician, the third son of William Forrest, of Leschenault, near Bunbury, by his wife, Margaret Guthrie, daughter of David Hill, of Dundee, was born 22 August 1847 in Western Australia. He was educated at Bishop’s School, Perth, and entered the survey department of the colony in 1865. He soon displayed marked capacity for the work of exploring, and in 1874 established his reputation by his successful expedition from Champion Bay to the overland telegraph line between Adelaide and Port Darwin, a distance of 2,000 miles through the heart of the continent, accomplished with horses only, without the aid of camels. Recognition of this feat took the form of a freehold grant of 5,000 acres and appointment as deputy surveyor-general in 1876. In 1883 Forrest was promoted to be surveyor-general and commissioner of crown lands with a seat in both the executive and legislative councils of the colony; and, when responsible government was attained by the colony in 1890, he was summoned to form the first ministry, in which he took office as treasurer. He remained in power until he resigned (1901) to join the first Commonwealth administration. As premier of Western Australia Forrest was responsible for programmes of public works and railway extension which added greatly to the prosperity of the colony, including the harbour at Fremantle and the supply to the Coolgardie goldfields of six million gallons of water daily by a pipe line of 350 miles from near the coast. He instituted also the system of free land grants of 160 acres on settlement conditions, and founded the agricultural land bank to make advances to agriculturists for improvements. But he worked steadily also for Australian federation, subject to securing the concessions which he deemed necessary for Western Australian interests. He represented Western Australia at the colonial conferences in London in 1887 and 1897, playing a prominent part in each, and obtaining on the latter occasion the decision of the imperial government to entrust the administration of matters affecting the aborigines entirely to the colonial government.
In the first Commonwealth ministry, that of (Sir) Edmund Barton [q.v.], Forrest, after a few days’ tenure of the postmaster-generalship, succeeded to the ministry of defence vacant through Sir J. R. Dickson’s death (January 1901); subsequently, in August 1903, as the outcome of Mr. C. C. Kingston’s resignation, he assumed the portfolio of home affairs, a post which he retained under the first ministry of Mr. A. Deakin [q.v.] until its fall in April 1904, In the second Deakin administration he held office as treasurer from July 1905 to July 1907, when differences with his colleagues on their attitude towards the labour party resulted in his resignation. He accepted, however, his old portfolio in the third Deakin administration (1909–1910), in the administration of (Sir) Joseph Cook (1913–1914), and in the ‘national’ Australian governments from February 1917 to
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