Forster John

Forster, John (1812-1876), English historian and man of letters, was horn at Newcastle, and educated at the grammar school there. He came to London in 1828, and soon began to write for the Liberal papers, and was appointed literary and dramatic critic of the Examiner. His Lives of Eminent British Statesmen gained him an entry into the best literary circles. In 1843 he was called to the bar. In 1846 he edited the Daily News for some months, and from 1847 to 1856 the Examiner. Besides contributing many articles to different periodicals, he wrote a Life of Oliver Goldsmith (1848), Biography of Sir John Eliot (1864), Biography of Walter Savage Landor (1868), his well-known Life of Charles Bichens (1871-74), and the first volume of a Life of Swift (1875). He was for some time a Commissioner in Lunacy.