Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (MP) Henry Dunster (1618 – 29 July 1684) was an English merchant and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1660 to 1679. Dunster was the son of Giles Dunster, yeoman, of Seavington St. Michael, Somerset and was baptised on 6 September 1618. He was apprenticed to a grocer in London in 1636, and became a freeman of the Worshipful Company of Grocers in 1644. He does not appear to have taken part in the Civil War. By 1652 he owned 52 acres in Ilchester and was elected to the corporation. In 1660, he was elected
Henry Dunster (1634) and taught at Magdalene. He served as Headmaster of Bury Grammar School and was a curate at Saint Mary's Church in Bury. Sponsored by Rev. Richard Mather, Dunster emigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1640. When Nathaniel Eaton was dismissed in 1639 as master of the recently established Harvard College, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Dunster was appointed as his successor. Thus on August 27, 1640 Dunster became the first president of Harvard. "(For a discussion of Dunster's choice of the title "president" see President#Title.)" He modeled Harvard's educational system on that of the English schools such as Eton College and Cambridge