FORSTER, WILLIAM EDWARD, statesman, born at Bradpole, Dorset, son of a Quaker; entered upon a commercial career in a worsted manufactory at Bradford, but from the first politics engaged his paramount attention, and in 1861 he became member of Parliament for Bradford; became in succession Under-Secretary for the Colonies, Vice-president of the Council of Education, and a Privy Councillor; his chief legislative measure was the Elementary Education Bill of 1870, which, as a member of Mr. Gladstone’s Cabinet, he carried through Parliament, two years after which the Ballot Act was introduced by him; in 1874 he visited the United States, and on his return was elected Lord Rector of Aberdeen University; as Irish Secretary in 1880 he made an earnest effort to grapple with the Irish problem, but losing the support of his colleagues, over the imprisonment of Mr. Parnell and other Land League leaders, he resigned; he was married to Jane, eldest daughter of Dr. Arnold of Rugby; his transparent honesty and rugged independence of character won him universal esteem (1819-1886).

FORT AUGUSTUS, a small village on the Caledonian Canal, 33 m.  SW. of Inverness; the fort, built in 1716 and enlarged in 1730, was utilised as a barrack during the disturbances in the Highlands, but after being dismantled and again garrisoned down to 1857, it finally, in 1876, passed into the hands of the BENEDICTINES (q. v.), who have converted it into an abbey and college.

FORT GEORGE, a fortress on the Moray Firth, 12 m.  NE. of Inverness; was built in 1748, and is now the head-quarters of the Seaforth Highlanders.

FORT WILLIAM, a small police-burgh in Inverness-shire, 66 m.  SW. of Inverness, near the southern end of the Caledonian Canal; the railway station stands on the site of the old fort, which in 1655 was built by Monk; a meteorological observatory was erected here in 1889.

FORTESCUE, SIR JOHN, an eminent English lawyer, born in Somersetshire; flourished in the 15th century; was called to the bar at Lincoln’s Inn, and in 1442 became Lord Chief-Justice of the Court of King’s Bench; he was a staunch Lancastrian during the Wars of the Roses, and shared the exile of Queen Margaret and her son Edward, for whom he wrote in dialogue form his famous “De Laudibus Legum,” a treatise still read; the fate of the Lancastrian cause was sealed on the field of Tewkesbury, and he himself was taken prisoner; he died at the advanced age of 90.

FORTH, a river of Scotland, formed by the junction of Duchray Water and the Avondhu, streams which rise one on Ben Lomond and the other on Ben Venue, and which, after 14 and 9 m., unite at Aberfoyle; the river thence flows with many windings, called Links, through some of the fairest country of the eastern lowlands to Alloa (511/2 m.), where begins the Firth, which stretches 51 m. to the German Ocean, and which at Queensferry is spanned by a massive railway bridge known as the Forth Bridge (1882-1890).