George Carey Foster (October 1835 – 9 February 1919) was a chemist and physicist, known for application and modification of the Wheatstone bridge for precise electrical measurement. The Carey Foster bridge is named after him.
Biography
Born in Sabden, Lancashire, George Carey Foster received early education at private schools and then graduated in chemistry from University College London. He was Professor of Physics at University College London from 1865 to 1898, and served as the first Principal (salaried head of the College) from 1900 to 1904.
In the 1860s he, in collaboration with Augustus Matthiessen, published three important papers on the chemical constitution of alkaloids. In the summer of 1876 at South Kensington, Foster gave two lectures to science teachers on electrical measurements.
He was the president of the Physical Society of London for two years beginning in 1887. He received an honorary LL.D. from the University of Glasgow and an honorary D.Sc. from the University of Manchester.
Foster was a member of the Athenaeum Club, London. In 1868 he married Mary Anne Frances Muir, who died in 1917 about 18 months before his own death in February 1919. Both of them were survived by all of their four sons and four daughters.
References
External links
The Carey Foster Bridge, description and image at Kenyon College
British chemists
British physicists
1835 births
1919 deaths
People from Ribble Valley (district) Fellows of the Royal Society Presidents of the Physical Society Alumni of University College London Academics of University College London Scientists from Lancashire