Balthazar Walter Foster 1st Baron Ilkeston 1840-1913

The London Gazette 28398. Whitehall, July 21, 1910.

The King has been pleased, by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, to confer the dignity of a Baron of the said United Kingdom upon the undermentioned gentlemen, and the heirs male of their respective bodies lawfully begotten:—

The Right Honourable Richard Knight Causton [aged 66], and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Southwark of Southwark in the County of London. [Note. Selina Mary Chambers Baroness Southwark [aged 58] by marriage Baroness Southwark of Southwark in London.]

The Right Honourable Sir Balthazar Walter Foster [aged 70], Knight, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Ilkeston of Ilkeston in the County of Derby.

The Right Honourable Sir Hudson Ewbanke Kearley, Baronet, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Devonport of Wittington in the County of BucKingham.

Sir Weetman Dickinson Pearson, Baronet, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Cowdray of Midhurst in the County of Sussex.

Sir William Henry Holland [aged 60], Baronet, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Rotherham, of Broughton in the County Palatine of Lancaster.

Sir Christopher Furness [aged 58], Knight, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Furness of Grantley in the West Riding of the County of York. [Note. Jane Annette Suggitt Baroness Furness by marriage Baroness Furness of Grantley in the West Riding of Yorkshire.]

Freeman Freeman-Thomas, Esquire, and the heirs male of his body lawfully begotten, by the name, style and title of Baron Willingdon of Ratton in the County of Sussex.

1st February 1913. Saturday. The Guardian published an obituary of Balthazar Walter Foster 1st Baron Ilkeston [aged 72]:

We regret to announce that Lord Ilkeston (formerly Sir Walter Foster), the distinguished Physician, died in London yesterday. Balthazar Walter Foster, son of Balthazar Foster, of Drogheda, who married Marian, daughter of Mr. T. Green, of Cambridge, was born in 1840. He was educated at Drogheda Grammar School and Trinity College, Dublin. He received part of his medical education in the medical school of the Royal College Of Surgeons, Dublin, and whilst there was one of the prosectors in anatomy. He qualified for practice by taking the diploma and licentiate of the Royal Colleges of Surgeons and Physicians, Ireland, and in the same year was appointed Professor of Practical Anatony in the Queen's College, Birmingham, and also was elected to the honourary staff of the Queen's Hospital. In 1804 he studied for a time at tho medical school in Erlangen. and took the M.D. degree there. At Birmingham he remamed as Physician to the Queen's Hospital until 1868 when he transferred his services to the General Hospital and remained on its active honourary staff until 1890. He became a member of the Royal College Of Physicians, London, in ISG5, a Follow in 1873. and was elected a member of its Council in 1911.

From the earliest days in which he settled in Birmingham Foster took a prominent part in the medical life of the town. As a teacher and clinician he wrote many bocks and papers on purely medical topics chiefly recording his clinical obsevations without adding much by his own researches to ntedical knowledge and as a consulting physician he had a large practice. From 1866 he begau to show that great interest in public and medical politics in which was the chief characteristic of his life. Municipal affairs occupied his attention for many years. and in 1883 he was elected to the Town Council. In the medical world he was an active member of the British Medical Association being president of the Birmingham branch in 1883-84, and after being for many years an active member of committees and of the Council of the Association he was elected as president of the Council in 1884. In 1883 he delivered an address on the "Political powerlessness of the medical profession," which had a great influence in arousing the profession to a feeling that if ever it were to be a force with which politicians had to reckon its members must organise themselves into a united body. His was also a leading voice for direfction representation of the medical practitioners on the General Medical Council, and when the object was gained (1886) he was one of the first three representatives elected to represent the English branch of the profession. He was elected to serve this Council for periods of five years and then retired. During this time he fought the battle of reform aud had to contend with much active ipposition from other members of the council.

He first entered Parliament in 1885 as liberal member for Chester, but from 1887 to 1910 he sat for the Ilkeston division of Derbyshire. As a private member he took a prominment part in the discussion of all quesions directly or indirectlv affecting the interests of medical men. He was a strong and successful advocate for the redress of various grievances of the medical offcers in the army, and lost no opportunity of improving the position of medical offcers of health attached to various public bodies. He also watched closely the passing of the Medical Act (1886), the Public Health (Scotland) Act, the Midwives Bill, aud the Poor Law Superannuation Act, guarding the interests of medical men affected by them. Whilst, Parliamentarv Secretary to the Local Government Board (1892-95) he strengthened the defences of the country against cholera, and presided over the Select Committee of the House of Commons on Death Certification. The Government, however, went out of office (1895) before there was time to legislate on the recommendations of his Committee. In 1897 the British Medical Association awarded to him its gold medal for distinguished merit as an appreciation of the value of his work for the Association and for the profession generally.

Sir Walter Foster received a knighthood in 1886, became Privy Councillor in 1906, and a peer in 1910. After resigning his active teaching of medicine, he was elected Emeritus Professor of Medicine in tho Queen's College, Birmingham. Besides his papers on purely medical topics. he wrote articles on "The Comparative Mortality of Birmingham and other Large Towns" '(1875), on the "Public Aspects of Medicine" (1890), and on the "The Prince's Ilnness: Its Lessons" (a lecture on the prevention of disease, 1892), which was a consideration of the means of preventing typhoid fever, by which the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward Vll., had been attacked. Lord Ilkeston married in 1864 Emily Martha, daughter of William Lucas Sargant, of Edgbaston, and leaves a son. Mr. B. S. S. Foster [aged 45], who succeeds to the title.