H. Paulsen Forster

(b. Middlesbrough, Yorkshire, **/**/1880 – d. South Africa, **/**/1943). Actor. Harold Paulsen Forster appears in the English Censuses of 1881 and 1891, but by 1901 he is no longer there, possibly because by that time he was already in South Africa. In fact, an H.P. Forster served in the Natal Mounted Rifles during the South African War and in the South African Archives there is a record of conduct and service of a (Harves) Paulsen Forster in the South African Constabulary. The trooper who served in the NMR was recruited after that, in 1902. In 1922, H. Paulsen Forster had a small part in the film The Vulture’s Prey, based on the novel by H. De Vere Stacpoole and directed by Dick Cruikshanks and William Bowden. It looks as though that may have been the sum total of his acting career. Subsequently he appears on the Voters Lists for Johannesburg North for 1927, 1929 and 1931, and someone by that named died in 1943, leaving his widow Ethel Beatrice Forster (née Terry). (There is a certain amount of speculation involved here, but the known facts fit.) (FO)

Sources

S.A. Pictorial, 29 April 1922

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