Sir Martin Forster, F.R.S

Abstract

THE death in Mysore City on May 24 at the age of seventy-two of Martin Onslow Forster has removed from our midst an organic chemist who, prior to 1922, was an outstanding figure in British chemistry. Forster received his early education at Dover Hill House, Margate, and having decided upon a chemical career he entered the Finsbury Technical College, where he received an excellent training under the late Prof. R. Meldola. As was customary at the time, when the opportunities for research in Britain were somewhat limited, he proceeded to Germany, where he worked at Würzburg under Prof. E. Fischer. The debt which Forster owed to him was in some measure repaid by the brilliant memorial lecture which he delivered to the Chemical Society in October 1920. Returning with his Ph.D. degree, Forster in 1894 came under the influence of Prof. H. E. Armstrong, in whose laboratory he worked as the holder of a Salters' Research Fellowship, and so arose a life-long friendship. His tenure of the fellowship was short, since in 1895 he was appointed by Sir William Tilden to a demonstratorship in chemistry at the Royal College of Science, and there followed a period of amazing scientific activity which rapidly placed Forster in the front rank of British organic chemists.