Donald Llewellyn Foster – Welsh Guards, 1st Battalion

Private Donald Llewellyn Foster – Welsh Guards, 1^st Battalion

Early Life

Tom Foster and Fanny Jane Cox
marriage certificate
St. Margaret Church, Anfield, Lancashire

Donald Llewellyn Foster was born in 1895 at Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire. He was the son of Tom Foster and Fanny Jane Cox, who were married in 1883 at St. Margaret Church, Anfield, Lancashire.

1901 Census

At the time of the 1901 Census, the family were residing at 8 Brooklands Terrace, Blackpill, Swansea. Tom Foster, aged 40 and born in Yorkshire, was employed as a Domestic Gardener, and his wife Fanny, aged 41 and born in Cardiff, was also present. Their children recorded in the household were Mabel Mary, 17, born in Liverpool and working as a Dressmaker; Eveline Elizabeth, 11, born in Oystermouth; John H. S., 9, also born in Oystermouth; Donald Ll., 6, born in Carmarthen; and Ernest James, aged 4, likewise born in Carmarthen.

1911 Census

By the 1911 Census, the family had moved to 7 Chapel Street, Mumbles. Tom, now 54, was recorded as a jobbing gardener, while Fanny J., aged 55, was also present. The children still living at home were Mabel M., 25; Eveline E., 21; John H. S., 19; Donald L., 17; and Ernest I., 15.

Military Service and Death

Donald Llewellyn Foster served as a Private in the Welsh Guards, 1^st Battalion, which formed part of the Guards Division on the Western Front.

By October 1917, the battalion was operating in the Ypres–Poelcappelle sector during the later stages of the Third Battle of Ypres (Passchendaele). In the days immediately surrounding his death, the Guards Division had been heavily involved in the Battle of Poelcappelle on 9^th October 1917, and was preparing for the First Battle of Passchendaele, which was to begin on 12^th October 1917.

On 11^th  October 1917, the date recorded for Donald’s death, the 1st Battalion was holding newly-won forward positions under almost continuous German artillery fire. The conditions were notorious: rain-sodden ground churned to deep mud, shattered trenches, poor drainage, and exposed positions offering little protection. During this period the battalion was engaged in essential front-line duties—strengthening defences, moving supplies and ammunition, clearing the wounded, and consolidating positions—all tasks carried out under frequent shelling, sniping, and gas attacks.

Although there was no formal assault on that specific day, casualties were suffered daily in the attritional fighting between the two major set-piece battles. It was amid this hazardous routine existence, rather than during a named offensive, that Private Donald Llewellyn Foster was killed in action on 11^th October 1917.

Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects 

Donald Llewellyn Foster
Tyne Cot Memorial
credit - findagrave

South Wales Daily Post

The Army Registers of Soldiers’ Effects record his death, and he is commemorated on the Tyne Cot Memorial, Belgium. A notice reporting his loss was published in the South Wales Daily Post, marking the death of one of many men who fell in the relentless grind of trench warfare during the Passchendaele campaign.