Matthew Forster
Matthew Forster was a British Whig politician and merchant.
Forster was elected Whig MP for Berwick-upon-Tweed at the 1841 general election and held the seat until 1853 when he was unseated due to bribery and treating during the 1852 general election. At the ensuing by-election, his son John Forster was elected as a Whig candidate. Forster attempted to regain the seat at the 1857 general election but ranked bottom of the poll.
Forster, "a wealthy and highly respected ship-owner and merchant" had mining interests, as a senior partner in Forster, Smith and Company, in both south County Durham and The Gambia.
In 1840 Richard Robert Madden reported that Forster was one of the London-based merchants who were actively helping the slave traders. However, Forster managed to escape criminal prosecution. In 1841 there was a change of government, and the new government chose not to send the matter to the Queen's Bench, but to a House of Commons committee that Forster himself was part of. Unsurprisingly, this committee rejected most of Madden's findings.
