George Carey Foster (October 1835 9 February 1919) was a chemist and

physicist, born at Sabden in Lancashire. He was Professor of Physics at University

College London, and served as the first Principal (salaried head) of the College) from
1900 to 1904.
He was the only son of George Foster, calico printer and justice of the peace in
Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire. After education at private schools
Foster became a student of chemistry at University College, London. He graduated
with honours and a prize in 1855 and then served at the college as an assistant in
Professor Williamson's chemistry laboratory.

In 1857 Foster joined the British Association for the Advancement of Science, presented his
research on the nomenclature of organic chemistry at their meeting, and maintained a close
involvement thereafter. From 1858 he undertook research in organic chemistry under Kekul at
Ghent, later moving to Paris and Heidelberg.[1] Having further pursued the study of heat, light,
and electricity, introduced to him by Williamson, in 1862 he was appointed professor of natural
philosophy at Anderson's University in Glasgow. During three years there Foster became familiar
with the student assisted research undertaken at the natural philosophy laboratory run by William
Thomson at Glasgow University. He met Mary Ann Frances Muir of Greenock, whom he
married in 1868; his happy marriage produced four sons and four daughters, all of whom
survived him, the partnership ending with his wife's death in 1917.
University College, London, appointed Foster as professor of experimental physics (physics
from 1867) in August 1865; there he became a much respected if not especially effective lecturer.
Although to some extent modelled on Thomson's archetype in Glasgow, Foster's first
achievement was to establish a students' physical laboratory in 1866, the first in Britain to offer
systematic instruction in experimental physics to undergraduates. In the same year Foster was
invited to join the BAAS committee on electrical standards, and often chaired its meetings.
Working with other leading figures in physics and telegraphy such as Thomson, Wheatstone,
Fleeming Jenkin, and C. W. Siemens, he acquired much expertise in precision techniques of
electrical measurement, especially of resistance and determining current flow, and induction, in
relation to the problems of telegraphy.
Foster was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1869, serving two terms as its vice-president
in 18913 and 19013. He was president of section A of the BAAS in 1877 and was general
treasurer of the association from 1888 until 1904.
In the course of his many investigations to measure and compare standards of electrical
resistance Foster adapted the Wheatstone bridge to measure small differences (rather than ratios)
of resistance. This important device, known and widely used for many years as the Carey Foster
bridge, was presented at one of the earliest meetings of the Society of Telegraph Engineers in
1871. Foster had been one of the founder members of this society (the Institution of Electrical
Engineers from 1888) and served as its president in 188081. His reputation as an expert in the
practical aspects of physics was further enhanced by the publication in 1875 of his preface to
Introduction to Experimental Physics, a translation by B. Loewy of A. F. Weinhold's German
original, Vorschule der Experimentalphysik (Leipzig, 1874).

The Carey Foster bridge

In the thirty-two years that Foster ran his laboratory at University College his students, including
William Edward Ayrton, Oliver Lodge, and John Ambrose Fleming, practised accurate
measurement. As dean of the faculty of sciences in 1874 Foster achieved BSc status for
experimental physics in 1876, and, with Fleming and Beare, the construction of purpose
designed new laboratories in 1893, the physics wing of which was renamed as the Carey Foster
Laboratory after he retired from the retitled Quain chair in 1898.
From the beginning of his professorship at University College, Foster had championed the higher
education and equal rights of women, and his efforts were acknowledged as an inspiration and
exemplar. He worked with Karl Pearson and Raphael Weldon in the Association for Promoting a
Professorial University for London.[2] Foster was a leading light in the movement to reconstruct
University College into a University of London which taught and examined, and throughout the
1880s and 1890s he campaigned to unify its teaching and examining functions, a sensitive
debate, his tact being indicated by his appointment as the first Principal of University College in
1900 upon his retirement from teaching.[3] In his four-year tenure he oversaw considerable
reorganization and development of the college, substantially increasing the provision of
accommodation, and cultivating growth in its intellectual and social activities.
Along with Alfred Porter of the same institution, he wrote An Elementary Treatise on Electricity
and Magnetism, founded on Joubert's Trait lmentaire D' lectriciti, a standard text in the
years around the beginning of the 20th century.
Foster was for many years editor of the Philosophical Magazine, working at this task until
shortly before his death. His many achievements were recognized by the granting of honorary
doctoratesan LL.D. from the University of Glasgow during its jubilee in 1901,[4] and a DSc
from Manchester. A quiet, unassuming man, somewhat nervous in manner, he was disinclined to
draw attention to his wide-ranging accomplishments, hence, perhaps, his neglect by historians of
physics.
The Carey Foster bridge is named after him: it is used to measure very low
resistances, although it can be used to find, for example, small differences between
large resistances. The bridge is in two parts: a slide wire, connected by thick copper
cables to a holder for standard resistances.