Vere Henry Louis Foster, English educationist and philanthropist is born in Copenhagen on April 25, 1819.
Foster is the third son of Sir Augustus John Foster, 1st Baronet and his wife, Albinia Jane, daughter of George Vere Hobart, and granddaughter of George Hobart, 3rd Earl of Buckinghamshire. He is educated at Eton College, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford, on May 30, 1838.
Leaving Oxford without a degree, Foster joins the diplomatic service. From 1842 to 1843 he is attached to the diplomatic mission of Sir Henry Ellis in Rio de Janeiro, and from 1845 to 1847 to that of Sir William Gore Ouseley in Montevideo.
In 1847 Foster visits a family estate in County Louth, Ireland at the time of the Great Famine, with his eldest brother, Sir Frederick George Foster. They become involved in famine relief. In 1848 their father dies and Foster undergoes a crisis in his life, and he comes to concentrate on philanthropy in Ireland.
Foster makes three voyages to the United States as a steerage passenger in a ship of emigrants, finding the accommodations bad, and the treatment of emigrants exploitative. Through his cousin Vere Hobart, Lord Hobart, he is able to influence parliament and the Passengers Act 1851. He also takes practical steps to promote Irish emigration to the United States.
Later, Foster takes up the improvement of education in Ireland. This is a time of Catholic suspicion of the national education system introduced by Richard Whately. Foster contributes to the provision of better school accommodation and apparatus, and gives grants in aid of building several hundred new school-houses. He agitates for improved wages and conditions for teachers, and develops the “Vere Foster copy-books” to improve and standardise the teaching of writing. The immense popularity of these texts draw him to the Belfast printing firm Marcus Ward & Company, and into personal friendship with John Ward, one of the firm’s owners.
In 1867, Foster settles permanently in Belfast where he continues to work as the president of the Congress of the Irish National Teachers’ Organisation. He fundraises for the Royal Belfast Hospital, and helps to establish a school of art in the town, while continuing to promote emigration.
In 1879, with the Land War in Ireland, Foster concentrates on promoting female emigration to the United States and the British colonies. He is supported in his projects by both Catholic and Protestant clergy.
Vere Foster dies, unmarried, in Belfast on December 21, 1900. He is buried in Belfast City Cemetery.
seamus dubhghaill 
January 8, 2020 at 3:50 PM
Mr Doyle, I was glad to stumble across your tribute to Vere Foster. As an Irish-American, I consider Foster a great man slighted by history. Unless I missed it, I saw no mention of Foster in the Irish-American press last year on the 100th anniversary of his birth. Given the thousands of emigrants he helped come to North America, one wonders how many of their descendants owe a great debt to this modest man.
Here’s a link to a related piece I wrote last year, “The Irish Girl and the American Letter…”
http://www.theirishstory.com/2018/11/17/the-irish-girl-and-the-american-letter-irish-immigrants-in-19th-century-america/#.XD-vGVxKiUk
Thanks for remembering Vere Foster! Great blog!
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January 8, 2020 at 8:50 PM
Thank you for the kind words! Although most of my information comes straight from Wikipedia, I felt this blog would help bring awareness to Irish births, deaths and events on the anniversary date of their occurrence. Also as an Irish-American, it helps me to feel closer to my Irish heritage. Best wishes!
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January 30, 2021 at 12:21 PM
Hi Jim, As chair of the Vere Foster Trust I have been collating information on Vere Foster in preparation for the development of a Vere Foster interactive website and also with a view to stimulating an interest in the restoration of Glyde Court, the Foster family home in Ireland, situated outside Tallanstown in County Louth, not far from Presidents Biden’s forbearers’ birthplace. Together with Lori Beckett, the inaugural Winifred Mercier Professor of Teacher Education at Leeds Metropolitan University, now retired, and an Adjunct Professor, Griffith Institute of Educational Research, Brisbane University, we envisage a restored Glyde Court becoming a state- of the- art- facility for professional and amateur researchers in education and in family history across the island of Ireland and internationally in memory of Vere Foster’s unselfish devotion to the cause of humanity and his role in attempting to eliminate the misery and suffering of the poor in post famine Ireland through his emigration and education schemes. We have co-authored a book dedicated to the memory of Vere Foster, entitled ‘Teachers and Teacher Unions in a Globalised World, History, Theory and Policy in Ireland’. His motto, written on all his writing copybooks, was our guiding inspiration- ‘A nation’s greatness depends on the education of its people’.
I am currently engaged in a major research project on Vere Foster and to-date I have accumulated nearly three thousand files relating to his life’s activities between internet links and newspaper clippings. I also had some articles on Vere Foster published in recognition of the bicentenary of his birth. I was delighted to see your tribute and Martin Ford’s comment, to a man who sacrificed position, wealth and even personal friendship in his quest to alleviate the suffering and misery of the most needy of Ireland’s poor through his assisted emigration schemes’, mainly to America, and his philanthropic efforts on behalf of education, agriculture and the upkeep of hospitals. An appreciation in the ‘Belfast Newsletter’ following his death in 1900 declared that he would long be revered as a man whose life story was ‘a record of unselfish devotion to the cause of humanity’. Sadly, their prediction did not come to pass for Vere Foster largely remains a forgotten figure in contemporary Irish history. It would be our desire to make contact with descendants of Vere Foster’s Emigrants and Irish American people who would be willing to engage in a movement to commemorate the memory and legacy of Vere Foster and to ensure that he is never forgotten either in Ireland or in North America. I can be contacted by email should you desire. John Carr
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February 12, 2021 at 2:04 PM
Mr. Carr,
Your comment on Vere Foster rings true. I’m glad to learn that you and your colleagues are working hard to bring attention to his accomplishments. I know less about his work on behalf of education in Ireland than about what he did for emigrants to America. I wish you success in contacting descendants of the thousands of young women he helped come here. One wonders how many of today’s Americans could trace their American origins to Vere Foster’s altruism!
Here in America, Presidents Day is coming up (February 15th). It’s a joint celebration of the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Several years ago, I wrote a Letter to the Editor of the Wall Street Journal marking Lincoln’s meeting with Vere Foster. The WSJ never printed the letter, but given your deep interest in Foster, I take the liberty of including it here. Please keep me posted on your valuable work. Martin Ford
Abraham Lincoln Meets Vere Foster: A Footnote to Irish Immigration.
Lincoln biographer, Richard Carwardine, has just published, Lincoln’s Sense of Humor. In a Wall Street Journal essay meant to bring attention to the book’s release, Carwardine describes our 16th president as, “a compulsive teller of stories and jokes” (“Lincoln Wasn’t Handsome, but He Had a Great Sense of Humor,” WSJ, Feb. 12, 2017). No one would ever guess this from the many dour photographs we have of the Civil War president, but Steven Spielberg’s film, “Lincoln,” captures the president telling so many funny stories that one of his cabinet members screams that he’s had enough.
In the historical literature on Irish immigration, there’s a Lincoln-like figure named Vere Foster. I say “Lincoln-like” because Foster had in common with Lincoln a big heart and a self-effacing character. A scion of the Anglo-Irish landholding class, he gave up a diplomatic career. On returning from an assignment in South America, Foster toured parts of Ireland in 1847, when the country was in the throes of the Great Hunger. This marked what anthropologists call a “turning” in his career trajectory. He gave up foreign service and thereafter devoted his time and fortune to improving the quality of life in Ireland. One of Foster’s initiatives was to help young Irish women emigrate to North America.
Vere Foster toured the United States several times before and after the Civil War to assess employment opportunities and living conditions for the young women he intended to resettle. He also solicited volunteers who would take in his girls as domestic help. In 1852, Foster visited Springfield, Illinois, and met with Lincoln, who was then known as “a dynamic young lawyer.” The Irishman’s brief account of their meeting suggests that Lincoln may on occasion have grown weary of speechifying.
Foster was surprised to find that when Americans recognized a public figure, they did not hesitate to ask for an extemporaneous speech. These requests could be tiresome, as may have been the case on this evening when Lincoln was about to sit down to supper at a hotel with his wife and the visitor from abroad. Fans called to Lincoln from the street, asking that he come out onto the balcony and make remarks. Foster relates how the rangy rail-splitter stepped out with his petite wife beside him and said, “My friends, I’m told you want a speech. Well, “here I am, and here is Mrs. Lincoln. That’s the long and the short of it. Good night.” The crowd, Foster assures us, was left with a speech they could remember. They cheered and departed “in the greatest of humor.”
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February 15, 2021 at 12:35 PM
Thank you, Martin, for your welcome comments and, in particular, the vignette re Foster’s encounter with Lincoln, which I had not come across before. I have been concentrating to date on Foster’s educational endeavours as the former General Secretary of the Irish National Teachers’ Organization (INTO) [Vere Foster was inaugurated as its first President when the various associations of teachers came together, at his instigation, to form the Irish Teachers’ Association (ITA)] in December 1968]. I am currently in the process of researching his Assisted Emigration Schemes which involved several visits to the United States.
You may be familiar with Foster’s views on the ‘amiable trait’ of Abraham Lincoln which he wrote in his notebook while acting as a ‘travel agent’ for the Women’s Protective Emigration Society and which he submitted to the Press on 26 April 1865 following Lincoln’s assassination.
“One of the first families in the city—would be a comfortable home. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln promise to treat any girl we direct to them as one of the family, and to give her a home certain for a month, so as to give her time to settle in a place.”
Having called on the Lincoln’s weeks later they kindly invited him to stay a few days …. “bed was made for me on the floor of the drawing-room, and I remained till next morning. Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln fulfilled their promise in the kindest manner to the young woman alluded to, who, remained in this house for about three weeks, and then obtained a situation”.
I am currently reading the first chapter of Andrew’ Urban’s book Brokering Servitude-Migration and the Politics of Domestic Labor during the Long nineteenth century which he devotes to Vere Foster’s first assisted emigration scheme -Liberating Free Labor-Vere Foster and Assisted Irish Emigration,1850-1865.
I have written two short articles on Vere Foster’s endeavors on behalf of the education of the poor in post famine Ireland which include his financial support in refurbishing over two thousand ‘hovel type’ schools, his views on ‘mixed schooling’, the status of the teachers and for securing for the public sufficient guarantees for the efficiency of their teaching.
His motto ‘A nation’s greatness depends on the education of its people, which was written as a strapline on his writing copybooks remains as relevant today as it was in mid-ninetieth Ireland.
I tried to find an email address to send you copies of the articles- but without success so far. If you are interested, I have left my email address with this post. Again, thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
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February 16, 2021 at 4:15 PM
John,
I’d be interested in reading your articles.
Thanks,
mjpforde@yahoo.com
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February 10, 2022 at 5:46 AM
Hi Jim, I am an artist researching Vere Foster to include some of his history on the walls of the primary school in Tallanstown Co. Louth Ireland. I live near there and my children go to school there. Could you give me a little information on the portrait photo you have at the top of your article? Do you know where it was taken and if it is hand coloured. I enjoyed your article and indeed the generous comments above. I would be thrilled if Gylde Court was restored. As an artist and educator I am obsessed with handwriting and remember fondly learning on a blue line/red line copy book not unlike Veres! Thanks, Susan
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February 10, 2022 at 6:38 AM
Hello, Susan! Thank you for visiting the site and I appreciate your comments! The photo is from the County Louth Ireland Genealogical Sources website (https://jbhall.clahs.ie/1856_emigrants.htm). Unfortunately, there is no additional information about the portrait, its source, colorization, etc. Best wishes to you!
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