Flora Forster
Flora Macrae Forster was a Welsh educator and writer.
Forster was born in St Thomas, Swansea in 1896, the daughter of Joseph and Alice Forster. Joseph Forster was a railway engineer, and was a descendant from Jonathan Forster from Wylam, one of the inventors of the early locomotive Puffing Billy. By 1911 the family were living in Swansea.
Education
Forster attended Dynevor School and was awarded the Mary Ewart Scholarship for English in 1915, enabling her to study at Somerville College, Oxford for three years. One of her contemporaries, and a friend for the rest of her life, was Margaret Kennedy, author of the 1924 novel The Constant Nymph, who died at Forster's house in Adderbury, Oxfordshire, in 1967. She also came across an older student from Rhydcymerau, Carmarthenshire, David John Williams and there was friendship and correspondence between the two until 1925. The correspondence is held in the DJ Williams Collection at the National Library of Wales. In her correspondence with DJ Williams they discuss the literature of the day and school syllabi. She declined offers from DJ Williams to marry her.She donated a portrait of Henry Griswold Lewis by John Constable to Somerville College.