Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

£353 14s 6d for betting from early 1934 until June 1936. The balance of £274 18s 3d was mainly for household expenses. In reply to Mr Kynoch Clark, the Official Receiver, Foster said that in 1921 he had £5,000 worth of shares in the Foster Brothers clothing company. He got into difficulties and his mother found a sum of money and he signed over the shares to her. He could not recall how much of his liabilities his mother satisfied in consideration for receiving the shares. He admitted he had not included debts of about £500 in his statement of affairs. It was an oversight since he had not heard of the accounts for more than two years. Foster stated he was captaining Warwickshire in 1911 and went with the MCC side to Australia. The Official Receiver then asked: ‘Is it not true to say that your circumstances then resulted in your acquiring extravagant habits?’ Foster replied: ‘No, I shouldn’t like to say so. My people have always had money and I have always had good money from the business.’ Official Receiver: ‘For two years you have been living beyond your means?’ Foster replied: ‘I would not say that. I lost money through betting.’ The Official Receiver, perhaps slightly exasperated, then asked: ‘How long have you been living beyond your means?’ Foster: ‘It is difficult to say because of the racing.’ He added that except for the racing he had been living within his means. Mr Mason, Foster’s solicitor, asked him when he thought he had started living beyond his means. He replied that in 1934 he realised he was living outside his income and he got into difficulties. As a result he tried to make his income up through betting. Mr Mason then asked: ‘Is it not true that at one time you were going to make betting your business?’ Foster: ‘I did take it up as a business.’ Mason: ‘And you now see the folly of it?’ Foster: ‘Yes,’ Mason: ‘And you have given it up and will continue to do so?’ Foster: ‘Yes, I have given it up.’ The Registrar concluded the hearing, pending Foster signing the transcript of the hearing as a true and accurate record. 70 The shambolic 1930s 107 70 Cricket statistician Glyn Powell, a former employee of the Official Receiver’s office, says that it is almost certain Foster never applied for his bankruptcy discharge so died a bankrupt. Had he lived until Section 7 of the Insolvency Act 1976 came into force, granting automatic discharge to all bankruptcies of five years or more, he would have been released.