Our Foster research extends back to the mid 18th century with a Settlement Examination Certificate of 1764 that shows that Austen Foster and his wife Anne, with their children William, John, Dorcas and Thomas moved from Canterbury to Deal in Kent. The settlement certificate certified that Austen, and his dependants, were legally settled in the parish of origin. Legal settlement was the overlying principle of poor relief at that time. The certificate was basically a form of indemnity issued by your home parish stating that you, your family and any future issue belonged to them and that they would take you all back at their expense if you became chargeable to the parish.
Once Austen had moved to Deal the Foster Family were to become a long and well established family of seafarers living in Deal for the entire 19th Century and into the early part of the 20th century. We know this from the census returns and death certificates that list the occupations of many of our ancestors as Boatmen, Mariners or Watermen.
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| The Goodwin Sands |
Deal is a town in the county of Kent that lies on the English Channel eight miles north-east of Dover. Due to its position to the notorious Goodwin Sands, Deals coastal waters have been a source of both shelter and danger, throughout the history of sea travel in British waters. The Goodwin Sands are around four miles offshore, beginning near Kingsdown and ending just south of Ramsgate, a total length of around nine miles. They are a notorious stretch of sands which become exposed at low tide and sufficiently dried to allow people to walk on them. However when covered with water at high tide the sands would turn into lethal quicksand and stricken ships along with any survivors could be completely swallowed up within days or even hours. The channel between the coast and the sands is known as the Downs.
As the large number of sailing ships seeked refuge and sheltered anchorage in the Downs the Deal boatmen would travel out in their boats and offer services such as taking out food and other supplies, offloading mail or piloting a ship to its next port of call. The boatmen were undoubtedly very skilled seamen and long before the first life boats were around they became famous for saving lives during their daring and courageous rescues from ships that had run aground on the Sands. But perhaps the most important thing for them was earning a living from the salvage of the wrecked ships. At the first sign of a wreck dozens of boats would race to be the first to board a wreck and hopefully claim salvage rights.
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| The Launch of the Lifeboat |
A book called the 'Heroes of the Goodwin Sands' - by Rev. Thomas Stanley Treanor tells us that our ancestor, Edward Jarvis Foster (Snr), was a member of the first North Deal Lifeboat crew in 1865, on a boat called the Van Cook, on her first launch to the rescue of the Iron Crown. There are also references made in a book called 'Last of our Luggers' - by E.C.Pain of Edward as the Master of the Mary Blane, a north end lugger and their exploits. We also have details from local newspapers and firsthand accounts of the 'the most sad and disastrous catastrophe which perhaps has ever happened to Deal boatmen', the loss of the lugger called the Reform. Edward was duly rewarded, along with three other boatmen, for their 'gallant and valuable services rendered' in saving three crew members of the Reform from certain death. The remaining eight crew members all perished!
During the 1700's Deal was to become one of the busiest ports in the country. As the amount of work for the Deal boatmen increased, so did the opportunities to conduct a darker side to their profession - smuggling! For many boatmen their main source of income came from trading alcohol, coffee, tea, wool, silk, gold, silver and other goods tax free in The Downs. They were undeterred by the death penalty for smuggling though it did encourage them to use firearms.
The long period of peace that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 meant that there was not as much work for the Deal Boatmen. The Royal Navy, with less to do, managed to crack down on smuggling, and the Deal boatmen's income dropped dramatically for their services to ships. The most serious threat to the work of the boatmen came from the growing use of steam power. Shipped mailbags that used to be offloaded at Deal were instead being taken to Plymouth and Southampton and transported by steam train. Steam tugboats berthed at Ramsgate and Dover could rescue sailing ships much quicker than a boat from Deal. Also the new large steam ships didn't rely on wind and current which meant they did not need to anchor in The Downs and were less likely to drift onto the Goodwin Sands.
As a result Deal experienced bleak poverty and by the 1850's the once busy, prosperous boatmen were going weeks without work. During these times of extreme poverty, in a time where there was no such thing as a welfare system, many able bodied people who were unable to support themselves often had no other option but to enter the Union Workhouse in order to receive poor relief. Workhouse life was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly destitute would apply. Anyone considering entry would have weighed the 'pleasures' of staying outside the workhouse with the 'pain' of entering it before making such choices. Some of our Foster ancestors did make that choice! We know, from their death certificates, that Robert Foster and his wife Hannah both fell on hard times and died in the Eastry Union Workhouse. Hannah died first in 1838 aged 74 with Robert dying a year later at the age of 69. We also know from the 1861 and 1871 Census returns that their son Philip Foster was an inmate in the Eastry Union Workhouse and his death certificate confirms he died there on 21 December 1877 aged 82.
Fortunately for a handful of Boatmen there was a solution that would change their lives forever - emigration! In order to escape poverty many millions of people were emigrating from Britain to the colonies. One of these countries was New Zealand which joined the British Empire in 1840. Philip Jarvis Foster along with his wife, Sarah, and their five children were among the fortunate ones. He was the eldest of four brothers, born to Philip and Mary (nee Jarvis) Foster, and set sail on the Regina from Gravesend, Kent, on the 2nd September and arrived at Lyttelton (South Island) on 4th December 1859. He settled in the town of Timaru and worked on the surf-boat landing service. In total Philip and Sarah had ten children of which there are now many descendants who now live in both New Zealand and Australia, some of whom we have managed to contact.
Images taken from the "Heroes of the Goodwin Sands" - by Rev. Thomas Stanley Treanor
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The long period of peace that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 meant that there was not as much work for the Deal Boatmen. The Royal Navy, with less to do, managed to crack down on smuggling, and the Deal boatmen's income dropped dramatically for their services to ships. The most serious threat to the work of the boatmen came from the growing use of steam power. Shipped mailbags that used to be offloaded at Deal were instead being taken to Plymouth and Southampton and transported by steam train. Steam tugboats berthed at Ramsgate and Dover could rescue sailing ships much quicker than a boat from Deal. Also the new large steam ships didn't rely on wind and current which meant they did not need to anchor in The Downs and were less likely to drift onto the Goodwin Sands.
As a result Deal experienced bleak poverty and by the 1850's the once busy, prosperous boatmen were going weeks without work. During these times of extreme poverty, in a time where there was no such thing as a welfare system, many able bodied people who were unable to support themselves often had no other option but to enter the Union Workhouse in order to receive poor relief. Workhouse life was intended to be harsh, to deter the able-bodied poor and to ensure that only the truly destitute would apply. Anyone considering entry would have weighed the 'pleasures' of staying outside the workhouse with the 'pain' of entering it before making such choices. Some of our Foster ancestors did make that choice! We know, from their death certificates, that Robert Foster and his wife Hannah both fell on hard times and died in the Eastry Union Workhouse. Hannah died first in 1838 aged 74 with Robert dying a year later at the age of 69. We also know from the 1861 and 1871 Census returns that their son Philip Foster was an inmate in the Eastry Union Workhouse and his death certificate confirms he died there on 21 December 1877 aged 82.
Fortunately for a handful of Boatmen there was a solution that would change their lives forever - emigration! In order to escape poverty many millions of people were emigrating from Britain to the colonies. One of these countries was New Zealand which joined the British Empire in 1840. Philip Jarvis Foster along with his wife, Sarah, and their five children were among the fortunate ones. He was the eldest of four brothers, born to Philip and Mary (nee Jarvis) Foster, and set sail on the Regina from Gravesend, Kent, on the 2nd September and arrived at Lyttelton (South Island) on 4th December 1859. He settled in the town of Timaru and worked on the surf-boat landing service. In total Philip and Sarah had ten children of which there are now many descendants who now live in both New Zealand and Australia, some of whom we have managed to contact.
Images taken from the "Heroes of the Goodwin Sands" - by Rev. Thomas Stanley Treanor
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