Mentioned on the Roll of Honour of Bagraw County School is 434761 Private Gawen Foster who served with the 50th Battalion Canadian Infantry and died 28/10/1955.
Aged 6 Gawen Foster, born on 6th February 1895 and named after his father, was attending Bagraw County School near Hexham and was living with his parents Gawen and Elizabeth Ann (nee Richardson) at Hall Style Bank, and his siblings Ralph, Elizabeth, Sarah, Isabella and Elsie.
September 1906 saw the family emigrate to Canada on board the SS Empress of Britain intending to head west and make their home in Calgary, Alberta. By 1915 when Gawen enlisted with the Canadian Expeditionary Force he was working as a teamster, as was his father. He became Private 434761 in “B” Company, 50th (Alberta) Battalion on 3rd February, giving his father as his next of kin.
After nine months training the Battalion arrived in England, sailing into Plymouth on 11th November 1915 and a posting to Bramshott Camp, Hampshire. It wasn’t until 11th August of the following year that the Battalion, as part of the 10th Infantry Brigade, 4th Canadian Division, got to France, and went immediately into front line trenches near Abeele on an instructional tour with 20th Battalion.
Wounded in the left arm at Vimy Ridge on 10th April 1917, leaving him with compound fractures, he was evacuated to a Casualty Clearing Station at Barlinn, then hospital in Boulogne before being evacuated to England and admitted to Harehill Road War Hospital in Leeds. Transferred to Baskingstoke for convalescence, he returned to Leeds where he married Emma Wilkinson on 31st October 1917. The marriage appears to have been short lived as when Gawen returned to Canada for further treatment four months later, Emma remained in England.
Left with limited movement in his left arm due to his wounds, he was discharged as medically unfit at Calgary on 12th May 1918 and received a disabled veteran’s pension.
His brother Ralph had been killed in 1917.
Shortly after the war Gawen with his family had moved to live in Vancouver, British Columbia and then Gawen crossed into the United States and by 1925 was living in Portland, Oregon and working as a carman for the Union Pacific Railway. He married Ella Ann Porter in July 1928, but they divorced in 1943.
Gawen Foster died in Portland on 28th October 1955. His ashes were never claimed and remained on a shelf in a Portland storage facility until the beginning of 2024 when they were claimed by the King’s Own Calgary Regiment, who perpetuate the 50th Alberta Regiment, and his remains were repatriated to Calgary and welcomed by the regimental padre.
His remains were interred in the Field of Honour at a simple service led by the Regimental Padre in August 2025, with a permanent headstone to be installed in 2026.
On 9th November 2025, Remembrance Sunday, the King’s Own Calgary Regiment held a graveside ceremony at Queen’s Park Cemetery, Calgary, Alberta to honour Corporal Gawen Foster. A guard, the flag-folding party, and the Regimental band along with other ex and serving military personnel and guests were on parade for the ceremony.
His permanent headstone will be unveiled in 2026.
Gawen Foster is remembered at Hexham on H51.53.
