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 Post subject: FOSTER, Cuthbert.
PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 4:33 am 
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Joined: Thu Jun 26, 2008 5:17 pm
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FOSTER, Capt. Cuthbert.

A wealthy UK custard manufacturer who was the third and last purchaser of a type 41 Royale (41131) which was fitted with an austere Park Ward Limousine body and delivered on 30th June, 1933.

The car carried the UK reg.no. ALB 2 and was fitted with a Rolls-Royce “Silver Lady” radiator mascot. It was photographed at Foster’s house at Hadley Bourne, Barnet, North London.

The car was subsequently purchased by Fritz Schlumpf and it now resides in Mulhouse with two of its sisters.


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 Post subject: Captain Foster
PostPosted: Wed Oct 15, 2008 10:45 pm 
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Joined: Wed Aug 13, 2008 12:10 am
Posts: 334
Funnily enough, Cuthbert Foster had nothing to do with the Foster Clark food group or Birds custard, this is a myth that I believe was spread by Hugh Conway snr.
Cuthbert's father was a clerk of holy orders who was fortunate enough to marry an American lady who was a member of the very wealthy Jordan family who owned Jordan Marsh's department store in Boston Mass.
Cuthbert was born in 1887 in London and according to the 1891 census, was then living in Lancashire in a house with eight servants.
In 1930 he moved from Bournemouth to Barnet, North London and when he bought the Royale in 1933, he would have been 46 years old (Josef Fuchs was 42 when he purchased the Weinberger Royale).
Apparently Foster was quite a character and chose a Type 41 because it was the largest car available.
On learning that he lived in Barnet, which is not far from where I live, I decided to phone the Barnet museum to see if they could tell me exactly where he lived. I was put on hold while the curator looked through a telephone directory from 1933 and she was able to tell me that he lived in a large house called Hadley Bourne.
In my lunch hour I decided to take a drive and find it. I knocked on the door and it was opened by a nun. It transpired that a convent had bought the house from Foster in 1946 and when I stood in the hall of this huge dusty old house it occured to me that it had not been touched since the days when the man who lived there happened to own a brand new Bugatti Royale in the motorhouse.
He sold the thirteen year old Royale to Jack Lemon Burton for £477. The house he sold for £18000 and spent the rest of his life in the U.S.
A few years later I was driving past to find it being completley stripped and repakaged as flats. I am pleased to say that I was at least able to "liberate" the ancient Hadley Bourne nameplate from the ruins.


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