Lives in Cricket No 18 - FR Foster

Chapter Two The first ‘Foster Brother’ William Foster, born at Billingham in Lincolnshire of farming stock in 1853, was the sort of self-made entrepreneur who would have delighted Mrs Thatcher a hundred and more years later. While still young he moved to Pontefract and dabbled in various business enterprises. His successes as a dealer in bankrupt stock, auctioneer and estate agent were somewhat mixed – indeed he once ran up considerable debts which he subsequently repaid – but there can be no disputing his expertise as a gentleman’s outfitter. He opened his first ‘Foster Brothers’ shop 18 at Beastfair in the West Riding town of Pontefract in 1876. In 1879 he married Elizabeth Rowbotham, one of the six daughters of Henry Rowbotham, a Pontefract schoolmaster (though originally from Macclesfield) and his wife Elizabeth, who was herself born in Chipping, on the edge of the Forest of Bowland, in Lancashire. The union produced four sons and two daughters. They lived at Friarwood Road, Pontefract and by 1881 had a servant. However it seems William wished to expand his business horizons and in 1884 he opened a shop at 414 Coventry Road, Small Heath, a couple of miles east of Birmingham city centre. 19 The family lived over the shop and that is where, in the county of Warwickshire (giving him a birth qualification to play cricket for the county) on 31 January 1889, second son Frank Rowbotham was born. 20 Foster Brothers continued to expand apace after William’s death in 1914. Though remaining a Midland company (a new head office was opened in Solihull in 1968) and family orientated – oldest son Harry and third son Edgar were working directors for many years and Frank’s son John eventually became joint managing director – more than 700 branches opened nationally. Swallowed up in 1985 by a conglomerate, Sears PLC, the Foster Brothers name disappeared for ever, but is still remembered by men dragged there in their youth by their parents when they would possibly have preferred something a little trendier. 18 18 Despite the ‘Brothers’ appellation there were, strictly speaking, no brothers but William thought it sounded better. The business, which predated Burton’s, was among the earliest of multiple retailers of menswear. 19 It is unclear why Birmingham was chosen; there was no apparent connection with the West Midlands though William’s parents moved to Nuneaton, where they lived into their nineties. 20 Other sources claim Deritend as Frank Foster’s birthplace, but although this was the registration sub-district there is no doubt whatsoever that it was Small Heath. In 2011 a branch of the British Islamic Bank occupies the site, a modern building perhaps less than thirty years old. Adding to the confusion, the 1891 Census gives his birthplace as Bordesley, nearer to the Birmingham city centre, and with its own railway station, but this could not possibly be correct.