required equal amounts of vision and capital. Without any
doubt, Charlotte was an achieving, enterprising woman
even though she had the burden of running a business,
making a home and looking after her son David, and this
before the days of electricity, running water and labour-
saving devices was backbreaking work.
had turned into something of a vendetta. The whole episode
had been hatched by three closely linked families and it
was this that had led to the court appearance and
allegations, argued his counsel. Oh, and the Newman
family did not report the crime straight away, instead they
waited nine months to do so.
way in which cottage women managed to make do won the
admiration of all who observed it especially people who
studied the welfare of villagers such as John Foster. This
connection was destined to prove critical in the future
financing of the Ward’s business.
young Sarah, the Bench dismissed her allegations and
Foster was acquitted. But even the pre-trial was not
without incident, when it was rumoured that the girl’s
father, a principal witness in the case, had been stopped by
a stranger who had bought him drinks in several public
houses on the way. By the time he was called, Newman’s
father was unfit to give coherent testimony. Interestingly,
the evidence he did manage to deliver, unequivocally
supported the Rector’s case.
controversy. Nor did controversy cease with his death. On
the one hand, he was identified as a savant, helping to
encourage small triumphs for his parishioners such as
offering education to their children. He took to help any
member of the parish who he felt was being unfairly
treated or who was in any difficulties. On the other hand,
Foster enforced a feeling of disloyalty amongst those who
he was there to serve and seemed to abandon his calling.
No more so than on 12 December 1871, when he was
arrested for allegedly raping a 16-year-old Foxearth girl
named Sarah Newman. Being guilty of rape carried the
capital sentence and he knew no mercy was likely for a
man in Holy Orders. However, at his pre-trial hearing the
power of the Vestry showed and he had his luck with
magistrates who refused to commit the case to a higher
court.
character was tainted and was forever labelled a
philanderer. But if his character was dealt a mortal blow it
was nothing to that of Sarah Newman’s mother who,
according to the Rector’s defence, was supposed to have
provided an outlet for the village’s sexual tensions at her
house opposite the Congregational chapel!
and Gardiner and was there any foundation to it? At the
time of the accusations Viall farmed land at Lower Hall
Farm that stretched from Foxearth to the neighbouring
village of Pentlow. Edward Gardiner, also a farmer was
Viall’s drinking partner and may have been a willing
accomplice to any of his friend’s ideas that came out of past
dealings with the Rector. There had been a history of
tension between the two men. From the time he arrived at
Foxearth, Foster began to buy up most the land in the
village including a substantial piece of land once farmed by
Simon’s grandfather Alfred Pratt Vial and which would
later be farmed by his son Samuel. Only according to land
heard the Rector’s solicitor make much of his client’s
problems with two landowners named Simon Quy Viall and
Chairman of the Bench