Author: Foster, Richard
Biography:
FOSTER, Richard (c.1771-1841: ACAD)
While most catalogues and bibliographies, including CUL, now treat Immanuel as anonymous, the attribution carries considerable authority. A Richard Foster, of these dates, matriculated at St. Catharine's College, Cambridge, in 1789, graduated BA (as 8th Wrangler) in 1793, and became a Fellow of the college. In 1806 he took an MA and about the same time entered the church. He was perpetual curate at Hunslet, Leeds, Yorkshire, for over thirty years until his death in 1841. At some point he must have married, for there was at least one son, Richard Jr., born about 1805, who attended Leeds Grammar School and went on to Cambridge and into the church himself. No other publication is associated with Foster and despite its length and ambition, Immanuel attracted little attention, perhaps partly on account of a shorter rival, Emmanuel! A Poem, by a Graduate of Oxford (George Hughes), which came out in the same year but went into a second edition in 1818 and a third in 1833. (ancestry.com 10 Oct. 2021; findmypast.com 10 Oct. 2021; ACAD)