FOSTER, Elmer Harold (1893-1948), a builder, contractor and amateur architect who was active in Charlottetown, P.E.I. during the period from about 1930 until 1948. His obituary, published in the Charlottetown Guardian, 29 March 1948, page 5, refers to him as an “architect” who had “….designed and built many fine homes in Charlottetown and surrounding districts which now stand as monuments to his name”. Born in Dunstaffnage, P.E.I. on 28 January 1893, he moved Charlottetown when he was a young man and engaged in the building trades at a time when only three professional architects, E.S. Blanchard, James E. Harris, and John M. Hunter were active in the entire island province of Prince Edward Island. Foster would certainly have been familiar with the work of these designers, yet he chose to remain outside professional circles, and his name is absent from membership records of the Maritime Association of Architects (formed in 1933), and the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (formed in 1908).
A self-advertisement for Foster published in 1937 noted that “…some of the finest homes in the city and country have been designed and built by Mr. Foster….” (Charlottetown Guardian, 3 April 1937, 8). In 1949, a year after his death, his design for the residence of H.B. Chandler in Charlottetown received a prize in the Veteran’s Land Act Small Housing Development Competition, and was published in the Charlottetown Guardian, 22 Sept. 1949, 5. illus., and 23 Sept. 1949, 3 (inf. Harry T. Holman, Charlottetown).