xlvi Annual Report of the Council. 



years of his school life were spent at University College 

 School, London, where he was a contemporary of Joseph and 

 Richard Chamberlain, VV. Clowes, the publisher, Lord Romilly, 

 J. W. Mellor, and other distinguished sons of nonconformist 

 parents. 



After a distinguished career at University College, London, 

 first as a student of classics and afterwards of .medicine, he 

 joined his father in practice at Huntingdon, where he married 

 his first wife. His wife died in 1869, leaving him a widower 

 with one son and one daughter. In 1872 he married Miss 

 Rust who survives him. After being in practice seven years, he 

 returned to University College, London, and was appointed 

 Teacher of Practical Physiology and subsequently Professor of 

 Physiology. In 1870, Trinity College, Cambridge, founded a 

 Praelectorship of Physiology, and, on the recommendation of 

 Huxley, whom he had been assisting as a demonstrator in the 

 first course of Elementary Biology, Foster was appointed to the 

 new post. 



From the date of Foster's appointment as Praelector in 

 Physiology at Cambridge, the new schools of the Biological 

 sciences in Cambridge began to grow and develop. In Newall 

 Martin, Francis Balfour, Sidney Vines, and others who were 

 among his first pupils, he found distinguished lieutenants to 

 whom he could delegate the care of the several branches of 

 Biology, while he himself remained the chief but unofficial 

 director of their studies. In order that the study of these 

 subjects, however, should be duly recognised, it was necessary 

 that certain changes should be made in the somewhat antiquated 

 arrangements of the Tripos examinations. The changes were 

 made ; but Foster himself could only look on and stimulate 

 others in the good work of reform ; for although he was made 

 an honorary M.A, of the University, it was not until the lapse 

 of thirteen years, when the Professorship of Physiology was 

 founded, that he obtained the privileges of a voice and a vote in 

 the councils of the University. 



