Person

Garnet Foster emigrated to Canada on the SS Empress of Ireland, leaving Liverpool on 25 May 1911 and making for Montreal. However, he travelled west and ended up working as a labourer in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and living there with his brother, James, who arrived in Canada in 1913.

28 October 1914 saw Garnet enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force and he was attached to the 27th Battalion as Private 71589, expecting to earn between $1.00 and $1.10 a day, or around $30 a month. He spent six months training in Winnipeg before travelling by train to Montreal and boarding the SS Carpathia to travel to Europe. Arriving in Plymouth on 28 May 1915 ,the battalion travelled by train to their camp at Dibgate, Kent as part of the 6th Brigade, 2nd Canadian Division. Private Foster’s service record shows that he was absent from the camp in Otterpool for three days at the end of August 1915, about the same time that he married Jane Horner in Auckland. After inspection by King George V early in September, the battalion received orders to leave for France on 15 September and they arrived in their billets four days later.

A week later they were in the trenches, but their first major offensive was the Battle of St. Eloi. It was here on the night of 8 April that Private 71589 “was consolidating the German trench they had just taken over when he was hit by a bullet, assisted to a dressing station the wound was dressed and the same day was sent to Poperinghe where he had an anti tetanus inoculation and his arm amputated”. So reads his medical history. Invalided to England and Canadian Red Cross Hospital at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, Garnet was measured for his prosthetic arm at Bushey Park in mid-June. Unfortunately, he had problems adjusting to it and did not leave hospital until 22 February 1917.

Choosing to remain in England, Garnet Foster was discharged from the CEF on 1 March 1917 as medically unfit.

Civil Parish: Shildon

Birth date: 21-Oct-1882

Death date: 17-Apr-1961

Armed force/civilian: Army

Residence: Essex Row, Lynesack & Softley (1891 census)
Southside, Lynesack & Softley (1901 census)
43 Foundry Street, Shildon (1911 census)
17 Alexandra Street, Shildon (service record)

Religion: Wesleyan

Employment: Miner (1901 census)
Railway shunter, coal mine (1911 census)
Labourer (enlistment papers)

Family: Parents: William Foster, Catherine Foster, nee Leck
Siblings: Alvina Foster, Amy Vickers Foster, Mabel Foster, Thomas S Foster, Vickers Foster, James Foster, Mary Kate Foster, Elizabeth Esther Foster
Spouse: Jane Elizabeth Garnet, nee Horner

Military service:

71589
Private
27th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Force

Medal(s): British War Medal
Victory Medal
1914/15 Star

Gender: Male

Contributed by Jean Longstaff, Durham | (Mod - Gemma, Durham University Intern)