Biography

Sir Michael Foster (1836-1907), knight, physiologist and politician, was born in Huntingdon on 8 March 1836. Foster was educated at the local grammar school in Huntingdon and then studied at University College, London. He graduated BA in 1854, heading the honours list in classics. Foster went on to the medical school of University College, London, where he won gold medals in anatomy and physiology, and chemistry in 1856, and graduated MB (1858) and MD (1859). Foster moved to London as instructor in physiology and histology, rising to lecturer, then in 1869 to assistant professor, and he was appointed Fullerian professor of physiology at the Royal Institution, succeeding Thomas Henry Huxley. In this period he was one of the demonstrators in Huxley's course of elementary biology at South Kensington. Foster was to be associated with Cambridge for the rest of his career, becoming the first university professor of physiology in 1883 until his resignation in 1903. In 1900 Foster was elected MP for the University of London.

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