Researching William Foster

At the 1908 Summer Olympics in London, he won the gold medal as part of the British 4×200-metre freestyle relay team and did not compete in any other competition. In the 400-metre freestyle final he finished fourth and in the 1500-metre freestyle event he was eliminated in the semi-finals.

Four years later at the 1912 Summer Olympics in Stockholm, he won the bronze medal as part of the British 4×200-metre freestyle relay team. In the 400-metre freestyle competition as well as in the 1500-metre freestyle event he was eliminated in the semi-finals.

He was born at sea on 12 December 1880 and served in the Boer War with the Royal Fusiliers and the Imperial Light Horse, returning to Britain after being seriously wounded. He was medically discharged in 1902, but rejoined the army during the First World War. He served with the 4th Battalion, Royal Fusiliers and fought at Mons and Ypres, being mentioned in despatches three times. He won the Distinguished Conduct Medal in 1915 and the Military Cross in 1916 while serving with the 3rd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers. He was commissioned in 1916 and retired in 1920 as a captain.

In the Second World War he joined the 7th Wiltshire (Salisbury) Battalion of the Home Guard as a lieutenant. Notice of his citation was published in the London Gazette of 27 November 1942.

Foster was the son of William Orme Foster of Apley Park, Shropshire and his wife Isabella Grazebrook, daughter of Henry Grazebrook of Liverpool. His father had been MP for South Staffordshire.

Foster was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford. He was a Justice of the Peace (JP) and Deputy Lieutenant for Shropshire and a JP for Northamptonshire, and an Alderman of Shropshire County Council.

In February 1870 Foster was elected at a by-election as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Bridgnorth. He held the seat until the 1885 general election when it was abolished under the Redistribution of Seats Act 1885.

Through his father who was primarily an ironmaster, Foster inherited a range of landed and industrial interests. Through the Apley estates he was Lord of the Shropshire manors of Stockton, Worfield and Claverley, and he owned land in the counties of Shropshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire in England and of Wexford in Ireland. In the name of John Bradley & Co, he owned collieries in Madeley, Shropshire and Shut End near Dudley, Staffordshire, and an ironworks at Stourbridge, Worcestershire. The Shut End colliery and the ironworks were sold respectively in 1913 and 1919.

Foster lived at Spratton Grange, Northampton, until after inheriting the Apley estate in 1899. He was nominated in November 1891 for the post of High Sheriff of Shropshire for 1892, but was not appointed, although he was appointed in 1903. In 1904 he served as treasurer of the Salop Infirmary in Shrewsbury.

In 1874, Foster married Henrietta Grace Mahon, daughter of Henry Sandford Pakenham Mahon of Strokestown House, County Roscommon, Ireland. The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on 7 March 1924, and William died two days later, on 9 March, aged 77, having been ill with bronchitis and pneumonia for over a week.

Foster received his training from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. During the 1910s and 1920s, he worked as a draftsman for a number of architectural firms before going into private practice. In 1934 he, along with 20 other architects, were hired on a consultatory basis by the Office of the Supervising Architect to help with the increased workload of New Deal projects. During his eight-year tenure with the Office he designed a number of post office buildings located in the New York City area. He also designed the Weather Bureau (1940) and State Department (1942) offices.

Foster made a single first-class appearance for Nottinghamshire against the Marylebone Cricket Club at Lord's in 1889. Nottinghamshire won the toss and elected to bat first, making 176 all out, with Foster being dismissed for a duck by Dick Pougher. Responding, the Marylebone Cricket Club were dismissed for 106 all out in their first-innings, with Nottinghamshire then dismissed for 86 in their second-innings, with Foster once more dismissed for a duck, this time by Alec Hearne. Chasing 157 for victory, the Marylebone Cricket Club reached their target with seven wickets in hand. This was his only major appearance for the county.

He died at Arnold, Nottinghamshire, on 1 November 1944.

Together with Henry F. Liebbe (1851-1927), he worked as Foster & Liebbe, which designed numerous courthouses and other public buildings.

A number of his works are listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places.

Works include (with attribution):*Blair House, E. Washington St. and S. 2nd Ave., Washington, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Hawkeye Insurance Company Building, 209 Fourth St., Des Moines, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*E.R. Hays House, 301 N. 2nd St., Knoxville, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Iowa Men's Reformatory Historic District, N. High St., Anamosa, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Naylor House, 944 W. 9th St., Des Moines, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Page County Courthouse, Main St., Clarinda, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Parker's Opera House, 23 N. Federal Ave., Mason City, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*Youngerman Block, 206-208 4th St., Des Moines, Iowa (Foster, William), NRHP-listed*English Office Building for Iowa State College, Ames, Iowa*Lucas County Courthouse, Chariton, Iowa*Central School, Lake City, Iowa (Foster & Liebee), NRHP-listed*Cathedral Church of Saint Paul, 815 High St., Des Moines, Iowa (Foster and Liebbe), NRHP-listed*Central Christian Church, Des Moines, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe)*Herndon Hall, 2000 Grand Ave., Des Moines, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe), NRHP-listed*Hospital for the Insane, Clarinda, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe)*Iowa County Courthouse, Court Ave., Marengo, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe), NRHP-listed*Wapello County Courthouse, Court St., Ottumwa, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe), NRHP-listed*Washington County Courthouse, N. B Ave., Washington, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe), NRHP-listed*One or more buildings in the Grinnell Historic Commercial District, Grinnell, Iowa (Foster & Liebbe), NRHP-listed*One or more works in the Winterset Courthouse Square Commercial Historic District, Winterset, Iowa (William Foster), NRHP-listed

Foster was born in Rathescar, County Louth, Ireland, the son of Rev. William Henry Foster of Loughgilly, County Armagh, and his wife Catherine, Hamilton. Foster was educated at Cheltenham College, and at Trinity College, Dublin, where he took the Vice-Chancellor's prize for Greek in 1850, also the composition prize in the same year, as well as honours in classics and mathematics. He left the University in 1851.

Foster arrived in Sydney in August 1854, and for the first three years of his residence in New South Wales devoted himself to agricultural pursuits. He then studied law, and was called to the colonial bar in 1858, when he entered on the practice of his profession. In 1859 he published a work on the District Courts Act, which was the standard work on the subject until 1870, when a revised edition was issued. In 1877 be published a supplement to the same work. He acted as a Crown prosecutor from 1859 to 1862 and from 1864 to 1870, when he was appointed Crown Prosecutor for Sydney, in succession to Mr. Butler, who had accepted the Attorney-Generalship.

In December 1877 Foster resigned as Crown Prosecutor, and became Attorney-General in the Farnell ministry, with a seat in the Legislative Council. Retiring with his colleagues in December 1878, he again took office in October 1881, being Minister of Justice in the Parkes Administration from that date till January 1883, when the Government resigned. He resigned from the Legislative Council in 1880 in order to successfully contest the seat of Newtown in the Legislative Assembly. In 1882 he was defeated, but was re-elected in 1885. Foster was made Queen's Counsel in 1886, and in the following January he again took office as Attorney-General under Sir Henry Parkes, but resigned in May 1887, on the ground that his prior claim to the vacant Puisne Judgship had been slighted. The following February he accepted appointment as a judge of the Supreme Court. Foster married in 1854 Matilda Sophia, daughter of John Williams, of Landigige, Pembrokeshire. He on several occasions refused appointment as a judge of the District Court, and declined nomination to be the Speakers of the Assembly in 1887.

Foster died in Valley Heights, New South Wales on .

His father, James Alexander Foster, was born into an Ulster Scotch family from County Donegal in 1738 in Berkeley County, Virginia. At the end of the Revolutionary War, he and his family moved to Western Pennsylvania along with other Irish, chiefly Ulster Scotch, families. James Foster was one of the founders and original trustees of Canonsburg Academy, a school founded in 1791. William attended the academy until he was sixteen and then moved to Pittsburgh shortly after the city's incorporation along the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers. William Foster found work with the company of Denny and Bellen, "Dry Goods, Hardware, etc." He represented the company promoted to a partner, and traveled widely. He provided supplies to the US military for the war of 1812.

Foster strongly maintained that the US government owed him money for serving as a commissionary agent in 1822 and 1850. He lost each case.

He founded the community of Lawrenceville in 1814, naming it for naval hero James Lawrence. It has since been annexed as a neighborhood of Pittsburgh.

Primary source material including family letters, business documents, ledgers, maps of property and other of Barclay's writings are housed in the University of Pittsburgh Library System Archives Service Center. These have been digitized and are accessible remotely.

Senior member of the Staithes group of artists, he had a studio at Runswick Bay for many years. He painted landscapes and rural genre in oil and watercolours. Exhibited regularly at the British Royal Academy of Arts (forty times) and at the Royal society of British.The Staithes group or Staithes School was an art colony of 19th-century painters based in the North Yorkshire fishing village of Staithes. Inspired by French Impressionists such as Monet, Cézanne and Renoir, the group of about 25 artists worked together in plein air, in oil or watercolour.