Daily archives: April 1, 2026

John Robert Foster was born in Long Eaton in 1885.  His father was a wheelwright who worked at Claye’s Wagon Works.  They lived nearby in New Eaton Cottages (formerly Claye’s Row), a row of terraced cottages facing the railway and backing on to New Tythe Street – between the Main St crossing and the Huss’s Lane footbridge. John started work as a wagon repairer but then in Feb 1902 (claiming he was 18) he joined the Royal Artillery, just before the end of the Boer War, on a short service engagement. In 1914, two weeks after the Great War was declared, he volunteered for the Army again.  He initially joined the Sherwood Foresters, but was soon in trouble for disobeying orders and being AWOL.  He seems to have ended up in the artillery again. In 1920 he married Edith Elizabeth Futter and the next year they were living with her family on Granville Avenue.  By then he was a wheelwright, working for Leys Malleable Castings, probably in Derby. In 1928 he fined for riding a bike without a light and two years later he was fined for playing pontoon at Trent Meadows. In 1931 his wife applied for a separation […]