His name was Surtees Forster and he is pictured with his bucket directly in front of what was by any standards a sensational Roman discovery. That was in 1907. Nine years later he was dead, killed on the western front at the Battle of Flers-Courcelette.
The poignant story of Forster and other “forgotten” labourers is to be told by English Heritage in a new exhibition at Corbridge Roman town on Hadrian’s Wall in Northumberland.
