• All the many Fosters referred to in the school records and in the parish registers are descendants of this George Foster of Sturgate. 
• He hung himself whilst of “unsound mind” in Sturgate in 1838. 
• Had 13 children

• Married (1) Elizabeth Johnson  in Springthorpe church in before1825

• Married (2) Sarah Bucaille at Springthorpe church in 1837
• Living in Sturgate in 1851 census:

Elizabeth Johnson (1797-1835)

• daughter of John Johnson (1770-1843) a tailor, and his wife Elizabeth (1765-1848)
• Brother James Johnson listed on the 1861 census; buried in Springthorpe churchyard
• Children: George Foster  and John Foster

• She was the daughter of a French soldier who served in the British army in Jamaica. 
• It is not known how she came to Springthorpe.
• She was his second wife, marrying in the church in 1837. 
• She later remarried to a man of the village called Harrison Grainger, who is also buried in the church. 
• She died in Belton in 1898, at the house of her son Charles who had been born in the village. 

FURTHER NOTES from Seth:

Your site also contains reference to the school log books and a child Sarah Foster and her mother. They are the wife and daughter of the George Foster of Old Street. 

Your site also contains an extract on people leaving the village in the 1890s , for work in Gainsborough. This is very likely to be a reference to the Fosters. George of Old Street left with his children for Gainsborough. Because they were amongst the last of a large family of agricultural workers  of the village in the 19th century, their movement from the village would indeed have been noted as a sign of the times.

On the 1861 census, there is a John Foster at Sturgate Lane – perhaps at the place where Robert (and his father) had lived. I think that four of the Fosters in your “Bricks in Wall” book may be the children of John: Elizabeth (marked as marrying Henry Gray), William, George?? and John (dying infancy?). 

On other Fosters referred to in your book, I think that the children marked as Betsey, James, Robert??, George?? Selina, Sarah are all the children of Robert’s son George – on Old Street in 1861 – who married to Elizabeth Cook (and whose marriage was announced in Gainsborough Union Workhouse records). 

I think the family, or at least some, will have been Primitive Methodists – the families of Robert’s sons George and William were definitely Primitive Methodist in leaning with children in turn married at the Gainsborough Chapel (later). I do not know that the religious connection goes back to the village, but it may. The son John lived adjacent to the Primitive Methodist preacher on one census entry. I was interested to read in your book that when the national school was set up those who attended the chapel could be excluded. Primitive Methodism was intimately bound up with the class struggles of the time. Religion not merely for but “by” the poor. It is not hard to suspect that non-attending children/families were effectively being pushed to go to the school of the landowner rather than continue with their own more modest  -  but still their own - sunday school arrangement. 
 

PHOTO:  The man of left – taken in 1918 at wedding of his son in Gainsborough – is George Robert Foster born Springthorpe 1871. He is a son of George Foster of Old Street, brother of the Fosters mentioned in your book including Sarah. The photo belongs to a descendant of George whose grandfather is being married. 
 

Remarkably, there are photographs of Elizabeth Foster (nee Johnson) born in 1834. She will be one of the oldest photographed Springthorpe figures.