SOME ESSEX NATURALISTS
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The rare moss Zygodon Forsteri is named after him. He
was partner with his father in the firm of Edward Forster
and Son, and followed his father by becoming a member
of the Court of Assistants of the Russia Company and also
a director of the Royal Exchange Assurance. His copy of
the "Plantae Woodfordiensis" passed into the hands of
George Stacey Gibson, who made use of the annotations it
contained in his ''Flora of Essex'' published in 1862, and
subsequently Gibson gave it to the library of the Literary
and Scientific Institution at Saffron Walden, where it now
is.
It is with the remaining brothers that we are mainly con-
cerned. Both spent a considerable part of their lives in this
neighbourhood, and their natural history studies are of more
interest to us.
The second son, Benjamin Meggott Forster, who never
married, was essentially a man of science. He contributed
plant records to Turner and Dillwyn's "A Botanist's Guide
through England and Wales '' which was published in 1805.
The Essex section of that guide is very largely the work of
these two brothers, Benjamin and Edward junior. In 1820
he published an ''Introduction to the Knowledge of Fun-
guses". He was also the inventor of a device known as the
Atmospherical Electroscope, which functioned for exactly
one year. He was probably involved in the affairs of the
family business, and, like other members of the family, he
was a philanthropist, a member of the Anti-Slavery Com-
mittee, and he was responsible for framing the Child
Stealing Act. He was a resident of Walthamstow from a
few months after his birth until he died on 8th March, 1829.
At the latter end of his life he resided at a house called
"Scotts" in Hale End Road.
While his botanical notes written in his copy of the
Plantae do not disclose the discovery of any rare or strange
plants in the district, they are of especial interest in showing
the changes which have taken place in the local flora com-
pared with conditions at the present day, now that both
Walthamstow and Woodford are virtually built-up areas.
His observations on some of Warner's notes confirming or
doubting the accuracy of the published records, too, are
interesting. Benjamin's herbarium of dried plants collected