Box People and Places
Latest Issue 31 Spring 2021 
  • This Issue
    • Celebrity Visits
    • Middlehill Tunnel
    • Doris Pepita Chappell
    • Local Roman Finds
    • Gingell
    • Jut the Ticket
    • Straightening & Levelling
    • Tottle Family
    • Rudloe Part 2
    • Bowdler
    • Bullocks Worldwide
    • James Shell of KIngsdown
    • Bill Peter Recalled
    • Rudloe WW2 Remnants
    • More Stink Pipes
    • Northey Tankard Found
  • Early Medieval
    • Britain in Late Antiquity
    • Box after AD 350
    • Why Speak English?
    • Art and Craft
  • Previous
    • Issue 30 - Georgian Rudloe
    • Issue 29 - Darkest Hour
    • Issue 28 - VE Day
    • Issue 27 - Northey
    • Issue 26 - Heritage Trail
    • Earlier Issues 1 - 25 >
      • Issue 25 - Slave Owners
      • Issue 24 - Highwaymen
      • Issue 23 - Georgian
      • Issue 22 - War Memorial
      • Issue 21 - Childhood 1949-59
      • Issue 20 - Box Home Guard
      • 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
      • 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
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  • People
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    • Northeys >
      • Early Family
      • World of the Northeys
      • Unpaid Bill: Smith & Northey
      • Family Tree
      • George Wilbraham
      • Life in Box
      • George Edward
      • Safe & Steady Son
      • Army Life
      • Theatrical Events
      • Rolls-Royce Pioneer
      • Northey Donkey Cart
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      • Class of 1954
    • Box Farms >
      • Weavern Farm and Mill
      • Old Jockey Farm
      • Hill House Farm
      • Coles Farm
    • Box Library Project
    • NATS Trails >
      • Heritage Trails 2019
      • Conservation Areas
      • Box NATS Trails 2018
      • Alcombe and Shockerwick
      • Mills on Box Brook
      • Saxon Footpaths
      • New History Trails 2017
      • Roman Road
      • Box Hill Trail
      • Georgian Middlehill
      • History Trails 2016
      • Mad House
      • Thomas Railway
      • Market Place Origins
    • Prehistory >
      • Kingsdown's Menhir Secrets
    • Roman >
      • Early History Hoard
      • Roman Road Finds
      • Ancient Discovery
      • Roman Mosaics in Box
    • Early Medieval
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      • Magna Carta in Box
      • Monk's Tale
      • Norman Conquest of Box
      • Tracing Bartholomew Bigod
      • When it Rained and Rained
    • Late Medieval
    • Tudor & Stuart >
      • Box in Civil War 1642 - 51
      • Wolf Hall and Box
      • Marsh Family
      • People during Civil War
      • Original Box Revels
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      • Ordinary People
      • Religion in Box, 1475-1660
      • Where You Live in 1626 >
        • Ashley
        • Central Box
        • Ditteridge
        • Hatt, Old Jockey and Blue Vein
        • Hazelbury
        • Henley and Washwells
        • Kingsdown
        • Middlehill
        • Rudloe
      • Hugh Speke Shaped Box
      • Walter Bushnell
      • Reformation in Box, 1535
      • Ten Tudor & Stuart Mansions
      • Death at Thomas à Becket >
        • For Whom Box Bell Tolled
      • Tudor & Stuart Timeline
      • John Aubrey's Box
    • Georgian >
      • Napoleon versus Box
      • Revolutionary Times
      • Coaches in 1830
      • Agricultral Census 1803
      • Tithe Apportionment
      • Slavery Families
      • Mullins Family, Schoolmasters
      • Box Churchyard
      • Sheridan's Duel
      • Tree of Life at Middlehill
      • Box's Highwayman
      • 1752: Very Odd Year
      • Witches, Quakers and Chapels
      • The New Road, 1761
      • Vulgarity in Box
      • Rebuilding the Village
      • Speke Family
      • Georgian People
      • Georgian Timeline
    • Rail & Quarry >
      • Crane 57
      • Railway Men Remembered
      • Old Clay Pipe
      • Recalling Box Quarries >
        • Oily Series
      • Quarrymen and their Families
      • Built in Stoneyards
      • Quarries in 2000
      • Single Ticket
      • Trainspotting in Box
      • Light Through Box Tunnel >
        • More Light on Tunnel
        • Brunel Myth
        • Sunrise at Box Tunnel
      • Marl at Middlehill
      • James Moodey
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      • Impact of Railways
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      • Lambert's Stoneyard
      • Cranes at Work
      • Railway Policeman
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      • Why Railways Came to Box
      • Box in 1830
      • Building Box Tunnel
      • Boxing and Quarrymen >
        • More Jem Mace
      • Clift Quarry Steam Loco
      • Timeline 1830 - 1870
      • Trial Shaft
      • Underbridges
    • Late Victorian >
      • Edwardian Love Story
      • Northey Estate Sale 1912-1923
      • Box Fete & Friendly Societies
      • Methodism in Box
      • George Reeves, Quarryman Ganger
      • Dipsomania in Box
      • 1870 Start of Era
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      • Ashley Leigh
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      • Class Division
      • Grove Inn
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      • Celebrations >
        • Jubilee Mug 1887
      • Parish Magazine History
      • Postcards of Box >
        • Postcard Solved
      • Skeate, Speck and Ponting
      • 1899 A Year of Festivities
      • Valens Terrace
      • Village Outings >
        • Excitement for Outings
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      • Timeline 1840 to now
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    • Great War >
      • Photos 2014
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      • Christmas 1913 and 1914
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      • Neighbour Against Neighbour
      • Home & Far Away
      • Finding Private Hall
      • Box Before the War
    • Inter War Years >
      • Shops in 1920s
      • Fascism
      • Sports Day 1931
    • WW2 Index >
      • Land Girl Remembers
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      • Box in 1943
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      • VE Day 1945
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      • Bath Blitz 1942
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      • Timeline 1939-45
      • VE Day Remembered
      • Dennis Moss >
        • Hazelbury Air Crash
        • Air Crash Wreath
        • Flight Crew Lost
        • Graham Brayshaw
      • Evacuated From Belgium
      • WW2 Resting Place
      • Sherman Tank Disaster
    • Modern >
      • Modern Art
      • Centre of Commerce
      • Shoe Sculpture >
        • Stiletto Sculpture
      • Characters in 1940s
      • Teenage Rebels, 1960s
      • Swingin Sixties or Not?
      • A Box Childhood
      • Box People from 1950s
      • Shops in 1950 Box
      • Box in 1950s
      • Village in 1950s
      • Summer of 1959
      • reCollections
      • Residents After the War
      • Coach Trips 1950s
      • Never Had It So Good !
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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
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