Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/439

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POSTER.

Hon. Col. G. Dawson Darner. She died in 1866, leaving him a large family.

POSTER, BmKET, born at North Shields, Northumberland, in 1812, educated at Kitchen, Herts ; at the age of sixteen was placed with Mr. I^ndells, the wood-engraver, by whose advice, after he had practised engraving for a short time, he be- came a draughtsman. At the age of twenty-one he started on his own account, illustrated several chil- dren's books, and drew a great deal for the Illustrated London News, He illustrated Longfellow's "Evange- line," Beattie's" Minstrel," "Gold- smith's Poetical Works," and several other works of the same kind ; and has since been employed on most of the better class of illus- trated books that have issued from the press, especially a handsome volume devoted to English land- scape, with descriptions from the pen of Mr. Tom Taylor, published in 1863. Having resolved to follow a different branch of art, and having in 1860 been elected a member of the Water-Colour Society, he has met with very great encouragement. A collection of "Summer Scenes" by Mr. Foster, consisting of a series of photographs from some of his choicest water-colour drawing^, waa published in 1867.

POSTER, Vebe Henry Louis, waa born at Copenhagen in 1819, his father. Sir Augustus Poster, being at that time British ambas- sador in Denmark. He was edu- cated at Eton, and afterwards at Christchurch, Oxford, and then en- tered the diplomatic service under Lord Palmerston, who was then at the head of the Foreign Office. Subsequently Mr. Vere Poster was attached to the mission of Sir Henry Ellis to Monte Video. On his return from South America in 1847, he paid a visit to Ireland in the company of his eldest brother. Sir Frederick Poster, who had just succeeded to the title, and who was anxious to inform himself of the

position of the tenant]^ on family estates. The famine, ooi quent upon the failure of potato crop, was raging at the ti and so impressed was Mr. 'S Poster with the misery of people, that he determined thei fortii to devote his life to amelioration of the condition of population. His eldest brother tered warmly into his plans, they at once began to work for good of the poor Irish, and of tl own tenantry in particular, successful were they, that no dc by starvation occurred on the tates. Mr. Vere Poster bee convinced that one great caus the poverty of the people was ^w of employment for the redunc popiilation. Accordingly he iss a pamphlet — " Work and Wages in which he pointed out that ac the Atlantic there were work wages for all, and offered to the passage to New York of Irish people who wished to go, had not the means. He had 1: dreds of applicants, and for a n ber of years he constituted hin I an amateur emigration agent, voyage which he himself mad I the steerage of one of the a ! convinced him by a painful e: I rience that the emigrants i poorly fed, and shamehilly trea The news of this voyage got abr and his cousin. Lord Hobart, Mr. Foster's diary before Pk ' ment. It attracted attention, printed as a Blue Book, and Foster had the satisfaction seeing the Emigration Laws, w rendered the miseries he had dured thenceforth impossible British emigrant vessel. Mr. ter's scheme of emigration woi well, but it cost Mm, out of own private means and that of friends, above je8,000. The break of the Civil War in Ami (1861) checked for a time the sti of emigration, and Mr. Poster turned his attention to the impr ment of education in Ireland.