Canon Charles Wilmer Foster, FSA, FRHistS (1866–1935) was an English clergyman, antiquarian, historian and archivist. He founded the

Lincoln Record Society Lincoln Record Society is a British text publication society founded in 1910 which edits and publishes historic records relating to Lincolnshire and the Diocese of Lincoln. The ancient diocese covered not only Lincolnshire, but also Leicester ...

in 1910 and served as its secretary and general editor until his death; he made major contributions towards scholarship on the

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

and

diocese In Ecclesiastical polity, church governance, a diocese or bishopric is the ecclesiastical district under the jurisdiction of a bishop. History In the later organization of the Roman Empire, the increasingly subdivided Roman province, pro ...

of Lincoln, principally through publishing editions of historical documents.

Early life and education

Charles Wilmer Foster was born on 3 June 1866 in Dalton, Yorkshire, where his father Charles William Foster was the

vicar A vicar (; Latin: ''vicarius'') is a representative, deputy or substitute; anyone acting "in the person of" or agent for a superior (compare "vicarious" in the sense of "at second hand"). Linguistically, ''vicar'' is cognate with the English pref ...

.Major (1987), p. 42."Foster, Rev. Charles William"
'' Who Was Who'' (online ed.,

Oxford University Press Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print books ...

, 2007). Retrieved 24 February 2021. His mother Isabella Mary was the daughter of Francis Wilmer Watkins, a surgeon in the

East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and Southea ...

. Foster was educated at

Rossall School Rossall School is a public school (English independent day and boarding school) for 0–18 year olds, between Cleveleys and Fleetwood, Lancashire. Rossall was founded in 1844 by St Vincent Beechey as a sister school to Marlborough College ...

and

St John's College, Oxford St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford. Founded as a men's college in 1555, it has been coeducational since 1979.Communication from Michael Riordan, college archivist Its founder, Sir Thomas White, intended to pro ...

(1884–87). He graduated from the later with a pass-grade BA in 1887.

Church of England priest

After studying at the Leeds Clergy School, he was ordained a priest and appointed to a curacy at

St Michael's, Coventry St. Michael's is an electoral ward in Coventry, West Midlands, England. The ward's population is 21,700 (2010). In 2001, its population was 56% White British and 23% Asian or Asian British, many of whom were Bangladeshi. The ward includes many stud ...

, in 1889. From 1891, he held curacies in Lincolnshire, firstly at St Andrew's,

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

, where he remained until 1894. Between 1894 and 1898, he served as curate at Epworth, and then spent three years as a curate at St Andrew's once more. In 1902, Foster was presented to the vicarage of Timberland, in which incumbency he served until his death in 1935. At the same time, he was also the secretary to the Lincoln Diocesan Board of Education between 1904 and 1922 and secretary of the Lincoln Diocesan Trust and Board of Finance from 1908 to 1926. In 1908, he was appointed a canon of

Lincoln Cathedral Lincoln Cathedral, Lincoln Minster, or the Cathedral Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Lincoln and sometimes St Mary's Cathedral, in Lincoln, England, is a Grade I listed cathedral and is the seat of the Anglican Bishop of Lincoln. Constructio ...

and

prebend A prebendary is a member of the Roman Catholic or Anglican clergy, a form of canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in particular seats, usually at the back of the ...

of Leicester St Margaret. He served as

rural dean In the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion as well as some Lutheran denominations, a rural dean is a member of clergy who presides over a "rural deanery" (often referred to as a deanery); "ruridecanal" is the corresponding adjective. ...

of Longoboby between 1922 and 1925.

Scholarship

Foster's interest in historical scholarship began early. His first book, a history of the Wilmer family, was published in 1888. His time at Grimsby brought him into contact with the diocesan records at Lincoln, while his time at Epworth was spent under Canon

John Henry Overton John Henry Overton, VD, DD (hon) (1835–1903) was an English cleric, known as a church historian. Life Born at Louth, Lincolnshire, on 4 January 1835, he was the only son of Francis Overton, a surgeon of Louth, by his wife Helen Martha, daught ...

, a noted historian of the church. He published his first volume of a series of calendars of Lincoln's

probate Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the sta ...

records in 1902. After his appointment as vicar of Timberland, Foster began a project to preserve, sort and list the records of the diocese and cathedral of Lincoln. Realising the vastness and importance of these ecclesiastical records, Foster played a central role in the founding of the

(dedicated to publishing editions of the documents) in 1910. He was subsequently general editorStenton (1937), p. xii. and secretary to the society. Between 1910 and his death in 1935, he also contributed eleven of the society's twenty-nine publications – all but one edited by him alone. Foster's work involved editing documents about the church in 16th- and 17th-century Lincolnshire, and also the county and diocese's medieval records, the latter of which became his focus in the 1920s. He produced a calendar of 13th-century feet of fines from Lincolnshire in 1920, and then (with Canon Thomas Longley) an edition of the Lincolnshire sections of the Domesday survey, with an edition of the Lindsey Survey and a useful introduction on the county's lost settlements. Finally, he began a project to publish every document dating from before 1235 in the muniments of the Dean and Chapter of Lincoln. What followed was a careful and scholarly series of editions of these documents, three volumes of which were published before he died, and a further seven were continued thereafter by Kathleen Major, all under the title ''Registrum Antiquissimum'', the name given to a 13th-century

cartulary A cartulary or chartulary (; Latin: ''cartularium'' or ''chartularium''), also called ''pancarta'' or ''codex diplomaticus'', is a medieval manuscript volume or roll (''rotulus'') containing transcriptions of original documents relating to the fo ...

in the collection. This alerted many scholars to the range of this archive; as the medievalist Frank Stenton wrote, "under his treatment, the archives of Lincoln Cathedral became national records". Foster also published

genealogical Genealogy () is the study of families, family history, and the tracing of their lineages. Genealogists use oral interviews, historical records, genetic analysis, and other records to obtain information about a family and to demonstrate kinsh ...

records; he continued to produce his calendar of Lincolnshire

wills Wills may refer to: * Will (law) A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property ( estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the pr ...

, and wrote a history of

Aisthorpe __NOTOC__ Aisthorpe is a small village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. Aisthorpe is recorded as Æstorp in 1086, probably meaning "the secondary settlement to the east" from the Old English east and Old Da ...

and Thorpe-in-the-Fallows.

Recognition and legacy

Foster was elected a fellow of the

Society of Antiquaries of London A society is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction, or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. Societ ...

in 1910 and a fellow of the

Royal Historical Society The Royal Historical Society, founded in 1868, is a learned society of the United Kingdom which advances scholarly studies of history. Origins The society was founded and received its royal charter in 1868. Until 1872 it was known as the Histori ...

in 1919. In 1933, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters degree by the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. Foster died on 29 October 1935. His obituary in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' noted Foster's "profound and detailed knowledge of medieval Lincolnshire"."Obituary: Canon Foster", ''

'' (London), 31 October 1935, p. 16. As Frank Stenton wrote, "It is undoubtedly through the new materials which he made available to historians that Canon Foster contributed most to knowledge. But it should also be remembered that he saved innumerable documents from destruction or decay ... through him the records which illustrate incolnshire'spast have become part of the fabric of English history".Stenton (1937), pp. xi, xvi. Kathleen Major also described him as a "pioneering archivist".

References

Bibliography

* Bennett, Nicholas, ''Wonderful to Behold: A Centenary History of the Lincoln Record Society, 1910–2010'', Publications of the

, no. 100 (Woodbridge:

Boydell and Brewer Boydell & Brewer is an academic press based in Woodbridge, Suffolk, England, that specializes in publishing historical and critical works. In addition to British and general history, the company publishes three series devoted to studies, edition ...

for the Lincoln Record Society, 2010). * Major, Kathleen
"Canon Charles Wilmer Foster, MA, Hon DLitt (Oxon), FSA: A Pioneer Archivist and Editor of Records"
''

Archives An archive is an accumulation of historical records or materials – in any medium – or the physical facility in which they are located. Archives contain primary source documents that have accumulated over the course of an individual or ...

'', vol. 18 (1987), pp. 42–49. * Stenton, F. M., "Charles Wilmer Foster", in C. W. Foster and Kathleen Major (ed.), ''The Registrum Antiquissimum of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln'', vol. 4, Publications of the

, no. 32 (Hereford: Hereford Times Ltd for the Lincoln Record Society, 1937), pp. xi–xvi.