Box People and Places
Latest Issue 48 Summer 2025 
  • This Issue
    • Augustus Perren
    • Church Photos
    • Box Village Photos
    • Bath Photos
    • Pictor Photos
    • Celebration Photos
    • Perren Family Photos
    • Unknown Photos
    • Box People Photos
    • VE Day Full Story
    • Memories of VE Day 1945
    • VE Daty 2025 Anniversary
    • Oral History
  • Previous
    • Issue 46 - Box Hill
    • Issue 45 - Moleyns Lordship
    • Issue 44 - Viking Hazelbury
    • Issue 43 - Late Medieval
    • Issue 42 - Beautiful Box
    • Issue 41 - Becket Plays
    • Issue 40 - Selwyn Hall
    • Issues 30-39 >
      • Issue 39 - Modern Box
      • Issue 38 - Railway Workers
      • Issue 37 - Mill Lane Halt
      • Issue 36 - Box Rec
      • Issue 35 - Inter war
      • Issue 34 - Fogleigh House
      • Issue 33 - KIngsdown Post Office
      • Issue 32 - Chapel Lane
      • Issue 31 - Saxon Box
      • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issues 20-29 >
      • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
      • Issue 28 - VE Day
      • Issue 27 - Northey
      • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
    • Issues 10-19 >
      • Issue 19 - Outbreak WW2
      • Issue 18 - Building Bargates
      • Issue 17 - Railway Changes
      • Issue 16 - Quarries
      • Issue 15 - Rail & Quarry
      • Issue 14 - Civil War
      • Issue 13: Box Revels
      • Issue 12 - Where You Live
      • Issue 11 - Tudor & Stuart
      • Issue 10 - End of Era 1912
    • Issues 1-9 >
      • Issue 9 - Health & Leisure
      • Issue 8 - Farming & Rural
      • Issue 7 - Manufacturing
      • Issue 6 - Celebrations
      • Issue 5 - Victorian Centre
      • Issue 4 - Slump after WW1
      • Issue 3 - Great War 1914-18
      • Issue 2 - 1950s & 1960s
      • Issue 1 - 1920s
    • Index By Author
    • Partner Sites & Book Reviews
    • Currency Converter
  • People
  • Places
  • General
  • FULL Series
  • Contact
    • Blog
    • Q&A
Picture
          
          
Reverend George Foster
              
           Box's Theatrical Vicar,


           1924-1935

              
           David Ibberson              
                     
                    Rev George Foster was a caring man who brought fun,
                    plays and pageants to the village
                    during the Great Depression

       

                       Right: Reverend George Foster photographed in about 1930

The Reverend George Foster was the first in Box of a new breed of clergy; educated at St David's College, Lampeter, he spent many years as a curate in Bristol before being presented to the living of Box in 1924. He was to spend the next 11 years in the parish and, by all accounts, he brought a new dimension to his parochial duties

Shortly after his arrival at Box he organised a Fete And Pageant at Hazelbury Manor to raise money for church renovations and improvements to the Bingham Hall. A handbook sold at the fete still survives and is itself a potted history of Box and includes the names of many local participants. On the day of the fete, George gave A Humorous and Musical Entertainment at the Bingham Hall admission 6d, with an advertisement announcing 'The audience may leave at the end of the entertainment, unless they have already done so'. George it appears possessed that human touch with an ability to laugh at himself. His legacy to Box must be that of humanising the clergy by many hours of entertainment and merriment both on the Fete Field with Box Lions and in the old Bingham Hall.
Passion for Plays & Stage
Both George and his wife, Kate, had a passion for the stage. They organised and performed in entertainments at the old Bingham Hall - so named after DG Bingham, a railway clerk who went to Holland and made a fortune on the railways there and paid for the hall to be built. These entertainments were charitable functions to raise money for a variety of good causes, including the Box Lions of whom George was an enthusiastic member.
George's love for the theatre even involved him in the outwardly-glamorous but sometimes sordid world of the music hall - he was chaplain to the old Palace Theatre in Bath (this was situated opposite the Theatre Royal and is now a bingo hall and social club).

Some afternoons, an odd assortment of characters could be observed entering the vicarage to take tea when George and his wife held little gatherings to which artists performing in Bath were invited. Many famous artists of the day attended including Tex McCloud (spinner of ropes and yarns), Claud Dampler (he had a musical act in which Claud started playing conventionally enough but ended up underneath his instrument), and another George Foster who was known as The Vicar of Mirth. Few people living today have heard of these names.

The Reverend George Foster ended his ministry as sequestrator and clergyman-in-charge at St Leonards-on-Sea. When George departed Box in 1935, Great Britain was again drifting towards a military conflict which made his time in the village seem even more ideal.
Twenty years later George Foster and his wife Kate recalled their happy times in the village in the Parish Magazine of January 1955:

What happy memories Box conjures up for us.

Remembering Box Twenty Years Later
The services for Publicans and Sinners at 9.45 on Sundays; services in the Northey Arms’ grounds with Bishops and the Corsham Town Band; Hazelbury pageant; The Way of Compassion; the Box Blackbirds with Roddy Hughes giving excerpts from his extensive repertoire, Mrs Gorringe’s Necklace, Dolly Reforming Herself, the concert parties, Some Rubbish, More Rubbish and Still More Rubbish. Then there were the many Passion plays and Nativity plays which Kate wrote for the Box Players’ Guild.
Back to Issue 1
See Also