Rectory Lane Cemetery, Berkhamsted

Rosa Foster

04/08/1843 –12/08/1903

Daughter of nurseryman John Edward Lane and his first wife Sarah; married Henry Foster

Relatives

John Edward Lane (senior) — father

Sarah Lane — mother

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James Foster — husband

Edward Charles Foster — son

• Melanie Hilton

Plot x240 Rosa Foster (née Lane) (1843-1903) 

Rosa was born 4 August 1843, the daughter of John E Lane, nurseryman, and his first wife, Sarah Foster. (Her father, mother and step-mother are buried in plot 181).

In 1879 Rosa  married Henry James Foster, brewer, in Berkhamsted. Henry was the stepson of Rosa’s father, his mother Hannah having married him in 1852.

In 1881 the couple were living at Oaklands and employing a live-in domestic servant.

They were to have two children, Sarah born 1882 and Edward Charles born 1886.

In 1901 Henry, a brewery director, was living at Oak Vale, Shrublands Avenue. Also living with him were his unmarried sisters Caroline and Anne Foster and his cousin Caroline Chilton. They employed a live-in domestic servant.

Rosa not at home because, tragically, she was confined as a patient in St Andrew’s Hospital for Mental Diseases in Northampton. Identified only by her age, initials and as “wife of brewer” she was labelled “Lunatic” in the census return, the catch-all description for virtually any sufferer from a mental illness at the time.

St Andrew’s was a charitable foundation founded in 1838. Thomas Octavius Prichard was appointed as the hospital’s first medical superintendent: he was one of the pioneers of “moral management”, the humane treatment of the mentally ill. The chapel was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and opened in 1863 and had housed, or was to house, several well-known patients including the poet John Clare and the Duchess of Marlborough.

Rosa died at St Andrews 12 August 1903, “The beloved wife” of Henry, and mother of Edward Charles, who are buried here with her.

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James Foster

19/07/1844 –03/03/1911

Hertfordshire Volunteers officer, brewer and town councillor

Relatives

Rosa Foster — wife

Edward Foster — brother

Daniel Charles Foster — brother

George Frederick Foster — brother

James Charles Foster (183) 23/09/1849 — father

Hannah Lane — mother

Edward Charles Foster — son

• James Moir

From The Berkhamstedian 1911-12

Foster – on March 3rd, 1911, at Berkhamsted, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James Foster, V.D.[1] (1854-58)

“A member of one of the oldest families in the town of Berkhamsted, where he has spent the whole of his useful life, Colonel Foster commenced as a clerk on the London and North-Western Railway, and early succeeded to the brewery business carried on as the Swan Brewery. He was for a time a member of the Berkhamsted Urban District Council, and always took a keen interest in the welfare of the town. For over thirty-nine years he was a member of the old Volunteers, and was the first man to take the oath in front of Colonel Smith Dorrien (the father of General Sir Horace Smith Dorrien. That was in December, 1859, and at the time of his death he held in his possession the first inscribed Roll of the old 7th Hertfordshire Volunteers. He was always proud of pointing to the fact that ‘E’ Company produced two Lieutenant-Colonels who started as Privates, the other being Lieutenant-Colonel S.R. Timson. The Volunteer movement had his strongest support from his earliest years, and in 1884 he proudly led his Company in review order before the late Queen Victoria, at Windsor. How many of the old Volunteers that stood at their Colonel’s grave remembered the battalion drills at Boxmoor and his kindness to them on those occasions? He always attended the funerals of the men of ‘E’ Company, amongst them being that of Chaplain – the Reverend A. Loxley, Charles Weedon, Walter Purton, Harvey Holloway and William Foskett. On Wednesday he was laid with his comrades. For fifty years he was attached to the Berkhamsted Dramatic Company – in fact he spoke the prologue of the first production, and for twenty-five years he held the position of President. For about twenty-five years he was a Governor of Berkhamsted School”
– The Berkhamsted Gazette

The School and the Old Berkhamstedians’ Association were represented at the funeral.

Henry James is buried in plot 240 along with his wife, Rosa Foster (1843-1903) and Edward Charles Foster, who died 12th February 1906, aged 20, their son. (As well as Edward, Henry and James also had a daughter, Sarah, who was four years older than Edward.)

There is also an Edward Foster, buried in the adjacent plot 239. He died 18th April 1870, aged 24, married to Marion. He was probably Henry’s younger brother.

Edward Charles Foster

d.12/02/1906

Son of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James and Rosa Foster

Relatives

Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James Foster — father

Rosa Foster — mother

Only son of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry James Foster and Rosa Foster (1843-1903). He died in 1906, aged 20.