Author: Forster, John
Biography:
FORSTER, John (1739-1809: ancestry.com)
He was born, married, and buried in Winteringham, Lincs., and still has a local reputation as "the Winteringham poet." No birth record has been found but a family tree names his parents as Nathaniel and Anne (Snowden) Forster. According to an article of 1913, the family was related to the Forsters of Bamburgh, Northumberland--and Foster left a narrative of his own life. (If he did, it was not printed and no ms has been located.) He had only three or four months of schooling but he was self-educated and articulate. He is said also to have benefitted from the ministry of the Rev. Mr. Adam, the parish priest for whom he wrote an elegy. He became a shoemaker, married Rebecca Hill on 18 May 1769, and with her had five or six children. During the American Revolution he was chosen by ballot to serve in the Lincolnshire militia. The curate at Winteringham at the time, the Rev. Robert Storry, who edited his collection of poems, undertook to send him news of the family while he was away. He died on 4 June 1809 and was buried on 6 June at All Saints churchyard, Winteringham. (ancestry.com 3 Oct. 2021; findmypast.com 3 Oct. 2021; Robert Storry, Preface to Forster, Poems [1797]; Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society 12 [1913] 66)