320
THE ESSEX NATURALIST
In 1764 the family settled in Walthamstow, at first in
Wood Street, but subsequently removing to Hoe Street in
1782 and where Edward Forster remained until his death
in 1812. Edward Forster the Elder had four children, one
girl and three sons. The first two sons, Thomas Furley
Forster and Benjamin Meggott Forster, were born in Bond
Court, Walbrook, the first in 1761 and the second son on
16th January, 1764, a few months before the family moved
to Walthamstow. The third son, Edward Forster junior,
was born at Wood Street on 12th October, 1765.
Edward Forster the Elder was himself a keen gardener
and naturalist, and it was undoubtedly his enthusiasm that
inspired his three sons to study botany. We learn from their
diaries and from a rare book entitled "Epistolarium
Forsterianum", published in Bruges in 1845, that on one
occasion Edward Forster was robbed of his purse by a foot-
pad on his way to the City. On another occasion the family
went to London and thence by coach to Drury Lane Play-
house, getting in at half price with the fourth act. The play
they saw was "Measure for Measure", with Mrs. Siddons
in the part of Isabella. There is also an account of the fair
in Wood Street which took place annually on 1st May and
was commonly called "May Fair". After the fair in 1783,
they record a grand display of fireworks which were chiefly
made by some private gentlemen not much skilled in the art
before; but for brilliancy and variety of fire they will be
remembered as long as any of the then inhabitants of Wood
Street shall survive.
All three sons possessed their own copies of Warner's
"Plantae Woodfordiensis", and each of them had the
copies re-bound interleaved with blank pages upon which
they made their notes,
The eldest son, Thomas Furley Forster, married in 1788,
and afterwards went to live at Clapton, and did not return
to Walthamstow until the death of his mother in 1823. He
died in 1825. During his life he does not appear to
have paid a great deal of attention to Essex botany, although
he did publish a list of additions to the "Plantae Wood-
fordiensis" in 1784. His botanical pursuits took him else-
where, and he published a Flora of Tunbridge Wells in 1816.