Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster
Thomas Ignatius Maria Forster (1789–1860) was an English astronomer, physician, naturalist and philosopher. He was an early animal-rights thinker, promoted vegetarianism, and helped start the Animals’ Friend Society with Lewis Gompertz. He wrote on many topics, from morality and philosophy to bird migration, Sati, and phrenology, a term he coined in 1815.
Forster was born in London on 9 November 1789, the eldest son of the botanist Thomas Furly Forster. He learned science mainly from his uncle, Benjamin Meggot Forster, rather than through a traditional classical education. The Great Comet of 1811 sparked his interest in astronomy, and he discovered a new comet himself on 3 July 1819.
He studied at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, to study law but soon switched to medicine and earned his degree in 1819. In 1817 he married Julia Beaufoy, and they lived at Spa Lodge in Tunbridge Wells. After the birth of their daughter, they moved to Hartwell in Sussex and spent three years abroad.
Forster declined a fellowship to the Royal Society in 1816 because of its rules. In the 1820s he converted to Roman Catholicism. Upon returning to England, he became a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and helped found a short-lived meteorological society with Sir Richard Phillips. After his father’s death in 1825, he lived in Chelmsford near his daughter, who was at a convent school, and began researching how weather and climate affect diseases, including cholera, even making a balloon ascent in 1831.
In 1833 he went abroad again and spent most of his remaining years outside England, finally settling in Bruges, Belgium, and later moving to Brussels, where he died on 2 February 1860. He continued writing, composing poetry, and even pieces for the violin. He was friends with leading writers and scientists of his time, such as Thomas Gray, Richard Porson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Thomas Love Peacock, William Herschel, and William Whewell.
Forster published his early works in 1805, including Journal of the Weather and Liber Rerum Naturalium. He studied phrenology after meeting Johann Spurzheim and helped popularize the idea, which led him to write about the brain’s anatomy and education. He drew inspiration from diet and philosophy, linking his vegetarianism to Pythagorean ideas and the transmigration of the soul, and his writings helped influence others, including Shelley’s choice to become vegetarian. His later works included the Perennial Calendar (1824) and a collection of letters by Locke, Shaftesbury, and Algernon Sidney (1830).
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 23:31 (CET).