ASTONISHING PEOPLE

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 13240, 16 January 1941, Page 2

ASTONISHING PEOPLE

HE WALKED THROUGH LIFE Walking was his x great achievement. . Referred to in his day as the Astonishing Pedestrian, he was Foster Powell, a Yorkshireman, born at Horsforth near Leeds in 173 4. He spent the greater part of his life in London where he was in the legal profession, but he died comparatively poor, for he had no love of money, though ample opportunities of making plenty of it. Exceedingly tall and thin, he was dark in complexion, rather melancholy to look at, and unusually longin the arms. This is what he did: In 1773 he walked from London to York and back, a distance of 40 0 miles in five days and eighteen hours.

In 178 6 he undertook to walk 100 miles on the Bath road in 24 hours —SO miles out and 5U miles in. He completed the journey with 45 minutes to spare.

In 1787 he declared he would walk from Canterbury to London Bridge and back in 24.,h0urs —12 miles more than his former journey, and he accomplished it, much to the astonishment of everyone. He walked to York and .back to London in 1788 and 1790, both times in less than six days, though he was turned 50, and in 1792, being then 56', he made his record w r alk to York, setting off from Shoreditch Church in London to York Minster, and then- returning by the same road, doing it in five days and 15 hours. In the same year he won a bet of 20 guineas by walking six miles in 55 minutes, and soon afterwards he walked a mile in nine minutes and 20 seconds^ He died in 1793, and a great company of people walked to hla funeral. He was buried in London.