Researching Harry Foster

The oldest of seven brothers who played cricket for Worcestershire, Foster was a forceful right-handed middle-order batsman who acted as captain at Worcestershire for 11 of the first 12 season in which the county competed in the County Championship. He was also for many of those seasons second only to his brother R.E. "Tip" Foster as the county's leading batsman.

Educated at Malvern College, Foster matriculated at Trinity College, Oxford in 1892, and first played first-class cricket at Oxford. Not picked for any matches at all in 1893, he won a Blue against Cambridge in each of the next three seasons. In the Varsity match of 1895, he scored 121 in two hours as Oxford, set a target of 331 to win, reached just 196 all out.

Foster captained Worcestershire in the county's very first Championship match in 1899 and led the side every season until 1910, except for 1901. He scored 1,000 runs in a season eight times, and five times averaged more than 40 runs per innings. Among his 29 first-class centuries, he hit 216 against Somerset in 1903 — the first double hundred for Worcestershire in first-class cricket—and 215 against Warwickshire in 1908, both at Worcester.

Unlike his brother R.E. "Tip" Foster, Foster did not play Test cricket, but he led the amateur side in both Gentlemen v Players matches in 1910, and was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1911. He stood down as Worcestershire captain after 1910, but returned for the 1913 season. He then played intermittently until 1925, when he finally retired. In 1907, 1912 and again after the First World War, he acted as an England selector.

Foster was also a champion rackets player, being English singles champion eight times and winning several doubles titles. He and his brother, W. L. Foster, won the Public Schools Championship for Malvern in 1892. In the next four years he represented Oxford and proved victorious in both Singles and Doubles. Several times, efficiently partnered, he carried off the Doubles Championship, and from 1894 to 1900 and again in 1904 he won the Singles Championship. He also represented Oxford University at rackets for four years.

He was the second son of Samuel Green Foster of London.

He was a Justice of the Peace and Deputy Lieutenant for Suffolk, and in the Commission of Lieutenancy for the City of London, where he was appointed a Sheriff of London for 1891. He was Consul-General of Persia from 1892 to 1923.He was elected at the 1892 general election as MP for the Lowestoft division of Suffolk. He was re-elected in 1895, but did not defend his seat at the general election in 1900. He stood again at the January 1910 election, regaining the seat from the Edward Beauchamp, the Liberal who had won it in 1906. Foster's return to the House of Commons was short, as Beauchamp retook the seat at the December 1910 election.

After his defeat in 1910, Foster did not stand again until the 1924 general election, when he was selected as the Conservative candidate to replace Sir Thomas Bramsdon in Portsmouth Central. He won the seat, but stood down from Parliament at the 1929 general election.

He was a party in Foster v Driscoll [1929] 1 KB 470 involving a contract for the supply of whisky to the US during the prohibition era. The English courts refused to enforce the contract (even though governed by and lawful under English law), as its performance was unlawful under the law of the place of intended performance.

He married Amy, the daughter of John Sparks of Eastbourne and had 3 sons and 3 daughters.