Philip Foster (British politician) explained

Philip Foster
Birth Date:11 July 1865
Death Date:5 March 1933 (aged 67)
Party:Conservative
Citizenship:British
Children:3
Office1:High Sheriff of Sussex
Predecessor1:Ronald Olaf Hambro
Successor1:Desmond Beale-Browne
Termstart1:20 March 1931
Termend1:March 1932
Office2:Member of Parliament
for Stratford-on-Avon
Predecessor2:Thomas Kincaid-Smith
Successor2:Constituency abolished
Predecessor3:Victor Milward
Successor3:Thomas Kincaid-Smith
Termstart2:4 May 1909
Termend2:14 December 1918
Termend3:12 January 1906
Termstart3:25 June 1901
Honorific Prefix:Major
Monarch1:George V
Education:Eton College
Alma Mater:Magdalen College, Oxford

Philip Staveley Foster (11 July 1865 – 5 March 1933) was a Conservative Party politician in the United Kingdom.

Early life

Foster was the only son of Abraham Briggs Foster, chairman of the alpaca and mohair spinning firm of John Foster and Son of Black Dyke Mills, Queensbury, near Bradford. The firm had been founded by Philip's great-grandfather. He went to Eton College in 1879 and Magdalen College, Oxford in 1884, leaving with a degree three years later.

In the late 1880s he held a commission in the 6th West Yorkshire Militia, and from 1890 in the Staffordshire Yeomanry, where he was promoted to major in 1900.

Parliamentary career

After running unsuccessfully for Parliament in 1899 in a by-election to the Elland seat in West Yorkshire, he was elected for the constituency of Stratford-on-Avon in a by-election in June 1901, a seat he held until the election of 1906. Re-elected in 1909, he held the seat until its abolition in 1918.

Public life

He became a director and later, a firm chairman of the family firm John Foster and Sons. He was also chairman of the Air League, and chairman of the Midland Automobile Club. A keen angler and farmer, he became High Sheriff of Sussex for 1931.

Family

Foster married, in 1890, Louisa Frances Wemyss, daughter of Colonel Wemyss. They had three children. He bought a house in Old Buckhurst, Withyham, where he died in 1933 aged 67.

References