FOSTER, MULES BIRKET (1825-1899), English painter, was born at North Shields, and is said to have been able to draw before he could speak. At the age of 16 he entered the workshop of Ebenezer Landells, a wood engraver, with whom he worked for six years as an illustrative draughtsman, devoting himself mainly to landscape. About he abandoned illustration for painting, his subjects, executed chiefly in water colours, being landscapes and rustic scenes, with figures, mainly of children. He was elected in 186o associate and in 1862 full member of the Royal Society of Painters in Water Colours. He died at Wey bridge on March 27, See H. M. Cundall, Birket Foster, R.W.S. (1906).