▶Date of birth:  1 September 1800        Place of birth: Sunbury-on-Thames, Middlesex

▶Father:  James Foy     Mother:  Ann

▶Spouse(s): Elizabeth Spencer Boscowan       Date(s) of marriage:   13 July 1829    Place(s) of marriage: Marylebone, London

▶Occupation: Army officer; Clergyman (Anglican)

▶Lifestory: John Foy served in the Army before choosing to become ordained at the age of forty; he was constantly drawn back to Cheltenham throughout his life. He was born in 1800 in Sunbury-on-Thames, the son of James Foy, and his wife Ann. He attended the Royal Military College at Sandhurst, passing out with distinction in his examinations in Mathematics and Fortification in 1819, when the young Gentleman Cadet was recommended by the College for a commission, which he obtained as an Ensign in the 50th (the Duke of Clarence’s) Regiment of Foot.

His military career continued for some years, and he will have been with the regiment in the West Indies; in 1824 he bought a Lieutenancy in the 50th, before obtaining a Captaincy in 1829. In that year he married Elizabeth Spencer Boscowan, of Little Dunham, Norfolk, at Marylebone in London, and his attachment to the Army diminished. He exchanged with another officer to go onto half pay in early 1830, and later that year his first daughter, Clara Maria, was born in Cheltenham.

By 1832 the family were in Ramsgate, where another daughter, Helen, was born. At this time he must have decided, in his mid thirties, to dedicate himself to the Church, as in 1836 he entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge, at a time when he was back living in Cheltenham, at St Julia’s (a house and passage off Oxford Passage north of the High Street, no longer extant); a further daughter, Mercy, was born in the city but in 1839 his eldest daughter died there too. He obtained his BA in 1841, took holy orders and was ordained Deacon in 1840, and Priest (both Norwich) in 1841.

In that year he was licensed to the curacy of Little Dunham, Norfolk, where he remained until 1843, when he moved back to Cheltenham. Between 1844 and 1845 he served at a Curate at St Paul’s Church in Cheltenham; he lived at Monson Villa, near St Paul’s, in 1845. In the same year he left Cheltenham when he was appointed Perpetual Curate of Hazlemere in Buckinghamshire; by 1851 he and his wife had four daughters and in that year he returned again to Cheltenham. In 1852 he leased a house at 12 Selkirk Parade (now 49 Prestbury Road), Pittville in Cheltenham; he attended a meeting of the British and Foreign Bible Society in June 1853.

Even though he had at that point no clerical preferment, he involved himself in clerical business in Cheltenham, and frequently preached at St Paul’s and other churches in the town. In 1853 he also wrote his will, and stated that at the time he lived in Cheltenham. By the time of his death he had moved to Clifton near Bristol, and died there in 1855, at the age of fifty-five. [He is not to be confused with two near-contemporaries also called the Revd. John Foy, one a Roman Catholic vicar in Sussex, and the other a long-serving “travelling secretary” of the Society for the Employment of Additional Curates in Populous Places and later Vicar of St Martin’s, Lincoln.]

▶Moved to Pittville from:  Little Dunham, Norfolk      Moved from Pittville to: Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire

▶Date of death:  15 November 1855      Place of death:  Clifton, Somerset

▶Date of burial:         Place of burial:

▶Notes:        ID: 8161

Contributor(s):  John Simpson/Alan Munden