The Forsters originally hailed from Stanton Drew in north Somerset where, according to his will, Stephen was baptized. He had at least two brothers, one of whom, Thomas, continued to live at Stanton Drew, while another, Richard, became a successful merchant of Bristol and was mayor of that town in 1446-7.
Forster was one of a number of men with interests in Bristol who became London citizens and established successful businesses in the capital in this period, notably the grocers and half-brothers, John Young I* and Thomas Canynges*. Given the paucity of the fifteenth-century records of the Fishmongers’ Company it is impossible to say when he obtained the freedom of the city, or whether he did so by apprenticeship, redemption or patrimony. The first seems unlikely, mainly because by the time of his earliest appearance in the city’s records he was already established as a merchant in Bristol, from where he was licensed to ship grain to Bordeaux and Bayonne in 1426.
Shipments of grain formed just a small part of Forster’s wide-ranging trading activities. He was one of a select band of English merchants who traded extensively with Iceland in order to buy large quantities of fish. Bristol merchants were at the forefront of this trade, and in March 1439 Forster and his wealthy business partner, William Canynges*, were granted a licence enabling them to take their ship the Katherine of Bristol to Iceland and Finmark (the extreme north of Norway) in order to purchase fish. The licence also mentioned the ‘great debts’ which were owed to them by the people of Norway, indicating that they had probably undertaken earlier ventures without royal licence. There were similar voyages in subsequent years, and in 1442 Forster and Canynges secured a fresh licence for a period of four years allowing them to take the Katherine and another vessel, Le Marie Redeclyf to Iceland.
Forster’s links with London grocers, and indeed with other prominent merchants such as Thomas Cook II* and Philip Malpas* (with both of whose families he became related by marriage) reflects the fact that his commercial interests ranged far beyond those of most fishmongers. Like many other London traders he regarded cloth as a staple commodity: in 1445-6, for example, he exported 124 short cloths through the port of London in three separate shipments.
Following the acquisition of his export licence in 1426, Forster had continued to enjoy close ties with the city of Bayonne in Gascony. By the late 1430s, however, a serious trade dispute had arisen between London and Bayonne and, in July 1438, a ship from Bayonne was arrested by the sheriffs of London after the authorities in its home port had levied new tolls on merchandise belonging to Forster and four other Londoners. This retaliation was prompted by an action for debt which Forster and the others took out against the master of the ship and three Gascon merchants. The damage being done to his business may have prompted Forster to become involved in the negotiations which led to a settlement of the dispute in June 1442. Several months earlier, he and John St. Loe had been jointly appointed as provosts of Bayonne and keepers of its castle, and on 28 June 1444 they were granted the offices for 60 years, receiving all the customs, fees and rents there and without paying any taxes or dues to royal officers in Aquitaine. It is unlikely that Forster took up the post up in person, for between 1445 and 1447 he went on to serve terms as sheriff and auditor of London, and in April 1448, following the death of St. Loe, he resigned the posts to Richard Quatermayns and Ralph, Lord Sudeley, the steward of the Household.
The business dealings of Forster and his contemporaries depended upon complex networks of finance and credit, to which alien traders and bankers were pivotal. Dealings with aliens could, however, provoke controversy. Thus, in 1429 the Grocers’ Company prohibited its members from sealing obligations to Italians, as it had been discovered that the latter were selling the bonds on to others. The incident which appears to have provoked this was a public transfer which an Italian, Bartholomeo Contarini, made in the mayor’s court of bonds for £152 which he had been given by two prominent grocers, Sayer Acre and Nicholas Wyfold. Contarini had then assigned these bonds, payable by May 1430, to Forster in settlement of debts which he owed to him. In court Contarini undertook not to issue any acquittance to the two grocers without Forster’s consent, and to avow any suits taken out by Forster for non payment of the debt.
Forster’s prominence as a merchant meant that he was frequently called upon to act as an arbiter in commercial disputes, both in London and elsewhere. In January 1435 he and Robert Whittingham I* were chosen as arbiters by John Reynwell* in the course of the latter’s acrimonious dispute with the staplers of Calais. Five years later he acted in a similar capacity for Thomas Gille I*, the connexion between the two men possibly originating with the latter’s role as a customer in Southampton. Shortly afterwards he was Philip Malpas’s choice of arbiter in a dispute which involved holding up the embarkation of a Venetian galley. In 1448 his local knowledge was drawn upon when he was among those chosen to hear an appeal concerning a dispute involving Bristol men that had originally been heard in the court of admiralty.
Forster’s growing wealth made him a target for the Crown, which was coming increasingly to rely upon loans provided by London merchants and by the staplers. In September 1449 he lent the sum of 100 marks, which was the subject of a swift order authorizing repayment by assignment, and eight months later he found £301 for the expenses of the Household. On the latter occasion security for repayment was provided in the form of jewels and plate which were delivered to him by Richard Joynour*. The pledged goods were worth some £23 more than the loan, and in July 1451, after Forster had handed over that sum, it was agreed that he should keep them. The items listed included a number of standing cups decorated with precious stones, as well as diamonds and pearls.
By contrast with his business dealings, relatively little is recorded of either the extent or location of Forster’s property. He was not among those Londoners whose holdings were assessed for the income tax of 1436, suggesting that he may have been included among the taxpayers elsewhere, possibly in Bristol, for which no return survives. His holdings in London are difficult to locate. Nevertheless, it is known that in November 1437 he and his wife Agnes purchased a tenement and six shops in Birchin Lane, in the parish of St. Edmund the King, from a London grocer for the sum of £100.
Like his elder brother Richard, Forster also had property interests in Bristol, where he and Thomas Canynges were among those granted the King’s Head in St. Magnus’ parish by a group of goldsmiths and armourers in 1440, and during his brother’s mayoralty seven years later he participated in a transaction concerning several messuages in the town.
Although Forster was active in London from the mid 1420s onwards, it was not until the late 1430s that he began to take a more prominent role in the city’s government. Indeed it is striking that his election to Parliament, on 1 Sept. 1435, took place several years before he was appointed to any civic office. Clearly, therefore, qualities other than governmental experience lay behind his election to this assembly, and it is most likely to have been his standing as a merchant which made him a useful person to have representing the city’s interests.
Very little is recorded of Forster in London over the next three years, and he appeared relatively infrequently at meetings of the court of aldermen. His business interests may well have taken up a great deal of his time, and in fact there is evidence that he was experiencing some serious financial problems: on 3 Feb. 1458 he was exonerated from his aldermanry on the grounds that he was ‘broken’ by his ‘great poverty’. The nature of Forster’s predicament is unclear, as his petition allowed the mayor and aldermen to decide on grounds of illness as well as financial hardship, but the former seems most likely. By the end of October he was clearly gravely ill, for on the 28th the mayor, Geoffrey Boleyn*, took the unusual step of making formal arrangements for Agnes Forster to continue to occupy the property in St. Bololph’s parish which she and Stephen leased from the City for two years after her husband’s death.
Shortly after her husband’s death the mayor, John Walden*, confirmed his predecessor’s grant to Agnes. She immediately set about the implementation of her husband’s will, a task which would occupy her for a number of years as she sought to recover the debts owing to him.
Deuout soules that passe this way,
for Stephen Forster late Maior, heartily pray,
And Dame Agnes his spouse, to God consecrate,
that of pitie this house made for Londoners in Ludgate,
So that for lodging and water prisoners here nought pay,
as their keepers shal all answere at dreadful doomes day.
J. Stow, Surv. London ed. Kingsford, i. 40.
Agnes lived on until 1484, distributing her sons’ inheritances and arranging the successive marriages of her daughter, Agnes, to John Felde, a London stockfishmonger, and Robert Morton†, kinsman of Dr. John Morton, the future archbishop of Canterbury and cardinal. By the time of her death she had moved to the parish of St. Stephen Walbrook where she asked to be buried. Of the three sons she had with Stephen, Robert, a London grocer, had died, while Stephen had become a clerk with links to Cambridge university. The eldest, John, a prominent member of Edward IV’s household, died in 1488, leaving as his heir his nephew, another Robert Morton.