On 16 December 1983, the Battle School Lecture Training Building No. 201 was renamed and dedicated Foden Building by Colonel W.B. Sutherland, CD.
Regimental Sergeant Major William John Foden was born into a military family on 21 November 1876 at the garrison town of Carrickfergus, Ireland. His family emigrated to Kingston, Ontario in 1878. William enrolled in the militia with the 47th Frontenac Battalion and served in the South African War with the First Canadian Contingent, D Coy, 2nd (Special Service) Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. He fought at Paardeburg, Bloemfontein, Cape Colony and Transvaal and was selected for Canada’s Honour Guard to London, England, for King Edward VII's Coronation on 26 June 1902.
Through the settling of ex-soldiers, he moved with his wife and family to the Hardisty, Alberta area in 1906. He enlisted in the Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) in August 1914 as an Original with the Regimental Number of 500 — he was 36 years old. Initially the Company Quarter Master-Sergeant of No 2 Company, he later became the Company Sergeant Major. He was appointed Regimental Sergeant Major in October 1916 and was seriously wounded on 10 April 1917 during the Battle of Vimy Ridge.
After the war, through the 1919 a Soldier Settlement Act, he acquired land on the north edge of Hardisty, Alberta. Sergeant Major Foden called his property Vimy Ridge Farm. In 1983, the PPCLI Battle School presented him with a Vimy Ridge wooden sign that hung over the farm's main entrance. He died there on 11 May 1951 and is buried in the Hardisty Cemetery.
