Author: FOSTER, Hugh Ker
Biography:
FOSTER, Hugh Ker (1810-42: findmypast.co.uk)
He was born on 11 May 1810 and baptised on 29 Dec. at Holy Trinity, Hull, Yorkshire, the fourth son of Charles Foster of North Cave, East Riding, merchant, and his wife Sarah Ker, who had married in York in 1798. He was educated at Hull Grammar School and then articled to a local solicitor for five years in 1827. He married Elizabeth Turner on 27 Feb. 1830 at Howden, Yorkshire. It is not known if they had children. His only known work, listed here, is rare, with copies at Bodley (Harding. C . 1310) and Hull History Centre. Its lead poem “Hal Denys’ Wanderings” is clearly under the influence of Byron’s (q.v.) Childe Harold (1812-18) and Don Juan (1819-24). It was listed in Poets of Yorkshire (1845) but the editors, W. C. Newsam and John Holland, had never seen a copy. Corlass (1879) records that Foster served as a volunteer against the insurgents of the Upper Canada Rebellion (1837-8) but does not state why or when he left England. He died in Upper Canada on 4 Apr. 1842, leaving a chest of manuscripts which was subsequently destroyed. Corlass, however, evidently had some access to manuscripts (possibly through Foster’s sister, Ann, also a poet) and printed a later poem “On Hearing Distant Music at Sea” (1834).(findmypast.co.uk 12 Feb. 2023; Reginald W. Corlass, Sketches of Hull Authors [1879], 24-29; Hull Advertiser 10 June 1842; Newsam 109) AA
Other Names:
- H. K. Foster