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.
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
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.
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.
