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THE police were out in force. Roadblocks were thrown up around the
city. Residents were tittering with nervousness. Word spread: the
gangsters had been traced to a hideout in a cave.
The police guard the entrance to the cave with the Foster Gang inside, in 1914
The crowd had to be held back behind a fence as the tension mounted.
Then shots were heard from deep inside the cave, and it was all over.
The Foster Gang, wanted for murder and robbery, had chosen to take
their own lives rather than surrender to the police.
It was one of the most remarkable criminal sagas in early Johannesburg
history. The gang, consisting of William Foster, John Maxim and Carl
Mezar, had evaded police for months during the year 1914. They were
wanted for a string of robberies across the Reef, and the murder of
three policemen and a passerby. But nine other people also died because
of the Foster Gang, among them a distinguished Boer war general.
Tracker dogs had led the police to the cave on Wednesday, 16
September, 1914, where they camped out … and waited. The next day the
gang, literally cornered, took their own lives. Their leader, William
Foster, was only 28.
From the age of 22 he'd slid down the criminal slope very quickly,
unable to stop himself, taking others, including his younger brother,
with him.
The entrance to the cave - a hole in the ground
The Foster cave still exists, on private residential property. It is
visible as a two-metre-across hole in the ground, just below a very
attractive rock garden and house. Two large pepper trees stand tall on
either side of the hole, with green Wandering Jew groundcover tumbling
down into the gap and a rusty ladder against one side. The hole goes
down three metres and from there a 40-metre tunnel runs north into the
koppie.
It's an unremarkable tunnel, about two metres high in the middle, damp
and dark, and a little eery. Its entrance is almost completely covered
by a large rock but it is possible to squeeze past it.
The tunnel was originally a shallow cave, but in the 1890s prospectors
tunnelled through it into the koppie, but found no gold. Foster grew up
in nearby Fairview and had discovered it as a schoolboy, and played
there with his brother Jimmy.
William Foster
Foster was born in Griqualand East in 1886. His father was an
Irishman, his mother an Englishwoman. Foster was the third of six
children, and when he was 14 his parents moved to Johannesburg. His
father was a builder who was often out of town on building sites. He
left his wife with the children, and she didn't discipline Foster too
strictly.
Henry May and Iain Hamilton describe him in The Foster Gang as
"quick-tempered and obstinate and with a will of his own that sometimes
amounted to rebelliousness . . ."
Foster was sent to the Catholic Marist Brothers school in the city
centre. May and Hamilton paint a positive picture of him as a
schoolboy: "William as a boy was lively and attractive, with strong
features, bright grey eyes, and a ready smile. He held his head high
and his shoulders straight, and when he walked he gave an extraordinary
impression of electric energy, as if his body and limbs were tautened
by some strange inner force."
Foster apparently "worked hard and played hard", and there were
no signs of delinquency when he was growing up. His family was "a happy
one". He showed particular talent for soccer and became known as "a
wizard with the ball", and a minor celebrity. At 16 he was chosen to
play in the senior Johannesburg city team in the annual match against
Pretoria. His devotion to sport didn't mean he neglected his studies.
He had "an agreeable personality", and it looked like he was headed for
great things when he left school.
Surveyor and photographer
Foster matriculated
and was accepted by one of the gold mines as an apprentice surveyor, to
do a four-year course. He father bought him a motorcycle, and he
gradually played less sport. He developed an interest in photography,
and wanted to give up his apprenticeship to pursue his new passion. He
father forbade it, and Foster reluctantly finished his apprenticeship.
He combined the two skills, taking photographs underground for the
mining magazines and making much more money as a photographer.
He converted the shed of his parents' house in Fairview (far eastern
end of Commissioner Street) into a darkroom and workshop. He learnt how
to cut keys.
He decided he wanted to travel and take photographs. He chose Namibia
(German South West Africa then), and boarded a train, new camera over
his shoulder. No one knows what he got up to in Namibia, but several
months later he was found driving a pack of donkeys across the Cape
border, with two companions. His clothes were torn, and he was
unshaven. The German police arrested the young men and charged them
with theft of the donkeys. Foster gave a false name and wouldn't give
an address. He was sentenced to a month's imprisonment, which he served
in a bad-tempered and unco-operative manner.
May and Hamilton indicate that he was a changed person after
his jail term - he "was driven by some deeper force into an attitude of
rebellion".
Several weeks after his release he turned up in Durban, several
thousand kilometres away, having jumped a number of trains. In Durban
he worked at the docks for three months. He got into a brawl and
railway property was damaged. He was sentenced to £10 or a month's
imprisonment. He did not have the money, but on the way to jail he
escaped. Two days later he was caught on a Johannesburg-bound train,
with no ticket.
He was sentenced to £3 or three weeks; for his earlier escape he was
sentenced to a further two months in jail. He saw through his
sentences, as a second offender. After his release he was caught again,
jumping trains, trying to get to Johannesburg.
He gave a false name again, and was given a month for jumping the
train, and another month for escaping. After his release he was caught
stealing a kitbag - he was jailed for six months this time.
His slide into crime was firmly established - by now he had
served almost a year in jail and he had a criminal record. He emerged
as someone who disliked authority and rebelled against it. His family
had no knowledge of his recent unhappy history - he had never given his
address or his true name.
When he was released he telegrammed his father, asking for his
train fare home. He came home to his room in his parents' house, and
took up his life again as a photographer and sportsman. And he fell in
love for the first time - with Peggy Korenico, a chorus girl, who was
to prove a faithful partner.
Peggy Foster
They agreed to marry, but Foster wanted first to make money.
Around 1910 or 1911, when he was about 24, Foster decided to go to
England to see if he could make more money. The company he worked for
gave him a grant and transferred him to London.
He stayed for some 18 months, and when the ship docked in Cape Town, he
decided to stay there for a while, not having made his fortune yet. May
and Hamilton imply that this was a big issue for Foster: "He was more
deeply in love than ever with Peggy, but how could he face her feeling
himself a failure, a man of no importance?"
First burglary
Foster met a friend from
Johannesburg, Fred Adamson, while still in Cape Town, and the two of
them went to the circus. There they met John Maxwell or Jack Maxim, a
34-year-old American who had a cowboy and sharp-shooting act in the
circus.
Maxim also had a history of petty crime and had served two short spells in jail, and like Foster, he had a short temper.
He was in and out of jobs, saying he got bored quickly. The
three men spent time together, and soon Maxim was teaching Foster some
of his circus skills - shooting, trick-riding on a motorbike, and the
art of make-up and disguise. Maxim spoke about his plan to rob a
jewellery store - here was Foster's chance to make some big money.
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Death count
The three Foster Gang members: William Foster, John Maxim and Carl
Mezar, Peggy Foster, Vrededorp postmaster, man at Boksburg North
National Bank, two policemen in at the Imperial Bottle Store in
Fairview, policeman at house in Regent's Park, Dr Gerald Grace, General
Koos de la Rey, Inspector Edward Leach.
Other reading
Books on the Foster Gang include:
The Foster Gang, Henry John May & Iain Hamilton, Heinemann, London, 1966 (out of print).
Reader's Digest Illustrated History of South Africa, The Reader's Digest Association, South Africa, Expanded third edition, 1994
Peggy and William's baby
At the time of her
parents' death, she was about six months old. She married in South
Africa and emigrated to avoid her unhappy past. She never returned to
live in South Africa.
Rebellion in 1914
On 4 August 1914 Britain
declared war on Germany. On 8 September prime minister Louis Botha said
that South Africa would back Britain. Several Anglo Boer War generals,
amongst them De la Rey, were disenchanted with this decision and
resolved to gather their forces - remnants of the Boer army and poor
whites - and set off on horseback for Pretoria.
Botha was aware of these rebellious rumblings and had approached De la
Rey and the other Boer generals. It was clear that they were hostile to
the government's stance, but Botha carelessly left them in charge of
their garrisons, and they started planning for a mid-September takeover
of the government. De la Rey and Beyers were on their way to
Potchefstroom for the first phase of the takeover plan, when De la Rey
was killed in Langlaagte.
On 9 October one of the commanders, Lieutenant-Colonel Manie
Maritz crossed over into Namibia (South West Africa) with 500 men in a
show of anti-British solidarity, and this act mobilised government
forces. By 16 November most of the rebels had scattered and the
rebellion was over.
Reward precedent
A legal precedent was set in
Cape Town after the jewellery store burglary. Harry Bloom, a haulage
contractor in his late 50s, was a friend of the woman at whose boarding
house William and his fellow burglars stayed while planning and
executing their burglary.
After the burglary, Bloom approached the police after piercing together
details of the comings and goings of the burglars. His clues helped the
police arrest the robbers and recover the stolen goods. The day after
the burglary, the store owners had issued a £500 reward.
Once the haul had been recovered and the criminals apprehended, several
people tried to claim the reward. It became a contentious issue, and
eventually ended up in court. The first claimants were dismissed as
having no case, for although they gave valuable information, they were
approached by the police first. But Bloom had approached the police,
and he thought he was entitled to the money.
But the judge argued that when Bloom approached the police with
information he did not know about the reward and was therefore not
entitled to the reward - he had not approached the police with his
information in exchange for the reward.
This case set a precedent not only in South Africa but elsewhere - the United State, England Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
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The plan involved four men, and Foster went to Johannesburg to
fetch his younger brother, Jimmy, who had been caught some time before
stealing a motorbike at a mine where he worked, but had managed to
cover the crime and get away with it. Plans were carefully worked out -
19 March, 1913 was to be the day.
Maxim supplied the getaway car - he was the driver - and
dropped his three companions with false moustaches outside the American
Swiss Watch Company in Longmarket Street. Ten minutes later they came
out with two suitcases filled with jewellery (including 308 diamonds),
watches, Kruger sovereigns and cash. Maxim took £500 and headed off for
Johannesburg, leaving the three in Cape Town.
The three burglars were soon arrested - Jimmy Foster and
Adamson in Johannesburg, where they had sent the suitcases, and William
Foster in Cape Town.
The three were sentenced to 12 years with hard labour at Pretoria
Central Prison. Shortly before the trial began William and Peggy
married and spent a short one-hour honeymoon in a nearby hotel.
Escape
Maxim soon joined them in prison. His
previous convictions had been for selling liquor to blacks, and in June
1913 he was again charged with the same offence, and ended up in
Pretoria Central. Maxim was due to be released in March 1914, but
Foster decided he would be out before him.
He made friends with the prison tailors, and had a suit made for
himself. On 27 February 1914, nine months after his arrival in prison,
Foster escaped after his fellow prisoners arranged a fight. He cut his
way through a wire fence during the distraction, put on the suit and
disappeared. But the year was to unwind very quickly for Foster.
Peggy, in the meantime, had had their baby, a girl.
Once Maxim was released from jail in March, he teamed up again
with Foster, and a newcomer, Carl Mezar, and a string of robberies
across the Rand followed.
The first two were at the Roodepoort Post Office on the West
Rand, where £1 876 in gold coins and notes were taken, in April. A
short time later the Vrededorp Post Office was burgled, and several
hundred pounds' worth of revenue stamps were taken.
The thieves had left a white cotton glove which happened to fit the
hand of the postmaster. It transpired that the postmaster had
"borrowed" £72 from the post office, when he had found himself short
after buying a new car. He was given a suspended sentence in view of
his long service in the post office - 33 years - but his career was
ruined, and he committed suicide. He left his pregnant wife and four
children. His was the first in the trail of deaths left by the Foster
Gang.
On 17 July the threesome hit the National Bank in Boksburg
North on the East Rand. A man was killed before they got into the bank,
another was injured, but they left empty-handed.
The reward notice the police issued
The police sprung into action: roadblocks were put up, and a
£500 reward for information leading to the arrest of the bank robbers
was issued. The Gang had been in disguise, making the police's job more
difficult. Ten days later the police issued the reward again, this time
with a full description, including the names of the three robbers.
They took refuge in the cave in Kensington, 10 kilometres east of the
city centre. The entrance to the cave was covered with undergrowth, and
although the area had several groupings of houses and a tram line
several hundred metres from the cave, it made an ideal hideout. The
Gang stocked the cave with canned food, water, liquor and a paraffin
lamp.
They left the cave and moved into a derelict cottage in
Regent's Park, near Wemmer Pan, some 10 kilometres south of Kensington.
Peggy and the baby came to live with Foster in the cottage. Foster's
plan was to amass as much money as possible, and together with Peggy
and the baby, and his two accomplices, drive down to Lourenzo Marques
(Maputo) in Mozambique, then on to Europe.
They lay low for a month, but on 22 August the Gang made an
abortive attempt to enter a cycle store in Von Brandis Street in the
centre of Johannesburg. A few nights later, a large liquor depot in
Jeppestown was robbed - a ton of the most expensive liquor was stolen.
Maxim was selling it to blacks, to whom it was prohibited.
On 13 September a policeman was struck on the head by a crowbar
when he checked on the door of a liquor store in Bertrams, some five
kilometres west of Kensington.
Shortly after this, in Fairview, four kilometres south of
Bertrams, the Imperial Bottle Store was burgled, and two safes
dynamited, but they proved to be empty. But this time, police were in
the neighbourhood, and moved in swiftly. Two policemen were shot dead
as the three robbers got away on a motorbike.
The net closes
A neighbour in Regent's Park
recognised the gang from pictures in the newspapers, and alerted the
police. And here the police made a fatal mistake - a small contingent
of only four policemen approached the house. After fatally wounding one
of the detectives, the Gang, together with Peggy and the baby, made a
successful getaway in their car.
An extensive net of roadblocks were immediately thrown up around the city.
Foster had been wounded in the arm in the skirmish with the
police. He had insisted that Peggy and the baby take a bus to
Germiston, which she did. The Gang dumped their car and headed for the
Kensington cave.
The roadblocks set up to net the gang, trapped others. Dr
Gerald Grace and his wife were racing back to Springs, where he was to
assist at an operation at the Springs Hospital. It was a windy, dusty
evening, and at the spot were the three robbers were last seen, Grace
was waved down by two policemen, but swerved around them and hurried
on. Four shots were fired at the racing car, a bullet hit Grace's wife
in her arm, another pierced Grace's lung - he died before the ambulance
got him to hospital.
At about the same time, General Koos de la Rey, extremely popular and
accomplished Anglo Boer War general, was on his way through Johannesburg to
a military camp in Potchefstroom in North West province. De la Rey had
become very disillusioned with the government of General Jan Smuts and
General Louis Botha when it had sided with Britain in the war against
Germany.
De la Rey and his loyal group of followers were bitter at this -
they resolved to set off for Pretoria, where they aimed to take control
of the government and declare an Afrikaner republic. De la Rey was
going to Potchefstroom in the Free State, together with General
Christiaan Beyers, to raise the Vierkleur there, then spread the revolt
to the Transvaal, but he never made it out of Johannesburg.
His driver went through two roadblocks, on De la Rey's
instruction, thinking the government was on his trail. The third
roadblock was in Langlaagte. After being instructed to stop, a
policeman stepped into the road, and with his bayonet jabbed the front
tyre of the De la Rey's car. His companion thrust his bayonet into one
of the headlamps. Still the car sped on. The policeman lifted his
rifle, and fired a single shot - it struck the ground, rose and tore
into the back of the car, entered De la Rey's back and lodged in his
heart - he was dead within seconds.
End of the road
It didn't take police dogs
long to sniff the Gang's trail to the cave. The police soon surrounded
the cave, clearing the undergrowth from the entrance.
A closer view of the entrance to the cave in 1914
Inside the cave the three men had decided they would not be taken
alive. They wrote their farewell notes to their loved ones. Mezar was
the first to go, but could not bring himself to put the gun to his head
- Maxim did it for him with a single shot.
Foster wasn't quite ready to end it all. He asked to see Peggy and his
baby. He said he would come out of the cave once he'd seen them. Peggy
was fetched. Then Foster's father, mother and two sisters were brought
to the cave.
A huge crowd had gathered outside, held back by hastily-erected
fencing. It was a tense scene. The family were inside the cave, the
police were positioned around the cave mouth, rifles at the ready.
After an hour, Foster's family stumbled out of the cave, with the baby,
but without Peggy. The crowd waited in silence.
Then a shot rang out, followed by two others - Peggy had decided to die with Foster.
But this was not the end of the tragic deaths. After Dr Grace's death
at the roadblock, an instruction went out that there was to be no more
shooting at vehicles unless it was absolutely clear it was the Foster
Gang. Inspector Edward Leach, in charge of the western district of
Johannesburg, had telephoned these instructions to every station -
except Langlaagte, where the telephone was constantly engaged. After
trying to get through for half an hour, he jumped on a motorbike and
got the message through, but it was too late, De la Rey was already
dead.
Leach's conscience was further troubled by having persuaded his
senior officers to allow Peggy into the cave. The remorse was too much
for him - he committed suicide a few days later.
Foster had great ambitions to make his fortune, but he set his
sights low - post offices and liquor stores - although he certainly had
the means: weapons, a getaway car, disguises, a hideout, and know-how
like making skeleton keys. Perhaps if he'd got away with the first
robbery - the jewellery store in Cape Town - he might have made his
fortune and sailed to England with Peggy.
The Foster Gang and Peggy are buried at the Braamfontein
Cemetery. Peggy and Foster are buried in the same grave, alongside
Mezar, and next to the 1922 Miners' Strike graves. John Maxim is buried
in the general section.
After the Foster Gang affair, police dynamited the cave,
causing an avalanche of rocks to block the entrance. In 1985, students
from the University of the Witwatersrand brought in a crane and removed
the rocks from the entrance. The present owner of the property - in
Juno Road, Kensington - says two large rocks fell down into the hole,
one partially obstructing the entrance to the tunnel.
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