George Forster (died 1792) was an English traveller and civil servant of the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

, on the Madras establishment. He has sometimes been confused with the German naturalist

Georg Forster Johann George Adam Forster, also known as Georg Forster (, 27 November 1754 – 10 January 1794), was a German naturalist, ethnologist, travel writer, journalist and revolutionary. At an early age, he accompanied his father, Johann Reinhold ...

. He is notable for being the first Briton to have journeyed from India through Central Asia to Russia and published a journal of his travels.

Life

In 1782 Forster undertook a journey that began in

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

, Bengal and passed through Kashmir,

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safē ...

, Khorasan, and Mazandaran, crossed the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

by ship, and then travelled to Baku,

Astrakhan Astrakhan ( rus, Астрахань, p=ˈastrəxənʲ) is the largest city and administrative centre of Astrakhan Oblast in Southern Russia. The city lies on two banks of the Volga, in the upper part of the Volga Delta, on eleven islands of the ...

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...

, St Petersburg and then by ship to London.A Journey from Bengal to England through the Northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia, and into Russia by the Caspian Sea by George Forster
Volume 1
1798 an
Volume 2
1808 R.Faulding, London. In 1792 he was sent on an embassy to the Mahrattas, and died at Nagpore (called Nagpur in modern times).

Works

He published in England ''Sketches of the Mythology and Customs of the Hindoos'' (84 pp., 1785); and on his return to India he wrote an account of his journey, the first volume of which was published at Calcutta in 1790. The narrative of his journey was completed from his papers, and published in London by an unknown editor as ''A Journey from Bengal to England through the Northern part of India, Kashmire, Afghanistan, and Persia, and into Russia by the Caspian Sea'' (2 vols. 1798).

References

* ;Attribution 18th-century births 1792 deaths British East India Company civil servants 18th-century English people {{UK-writer-stub