Foster, Augustus John, Sir, 1st Baronet (1780 -1848)

Sir Augustus John Foster, 1st Baronet of Clyde Court, County Louth, was the second son of John Thomas Foster, Member of Parliament, of Dunleer, County Louth, and Elizabeth Harvey, daughter of Frederick Augustus, 4th Earl of Bristol, and Bishop of Derry. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford, where he matriculated 7 May 1798, age 17. British Secretary of Legation at Washington 1804 1806, he was appointed Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the United States 1811 1812. He was Member of Parliament for Cockermouth December 1812 until his resignation in 1816. He was subsequently Minister Plenipotentiary to Sweden, Denmark and Sardinia from which mission he returned in 1840. He was a Privy Councillor and a Knight Grand Cross of the Hanoverian Order. He married in 1815 Albinia Jane, daughter of the Honourable George V. Hobart, and sister of the 5th Earl of Buckinghamshire, and was created a baronet 30 September 1831. He suffered from long standing heart and lung disease and killed himself during a fit of madness in 1848. Books from his library were sold in London in February 1928.