51 Facts About Foster Fyans

Foster Fyans was an Irish military officer, penal colony administrator and public servant.

Foster Fyans was acting commandant of the second convict settlement at Norfolk Island, the commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement at Brisbane, the first police magistrate at Geelong, and commissioner of crown lands for the Portland Bay pastoral district in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.

Foster Fyans joined the British Army in 1811, being assigned the junior rank of ensign in the 67th Regiment of Foot.

Foster Fyans's battalion was deployed to assist in the Peninsula War.

Foster Fyans was present at both Cadiz and Cartagena while these cities were under siege from Napoleonic forces.

Foster Fyans was stationed for most of the war period at Gibraltar where he saw little action, but was promoted to lieutenant.

In 1818 Foster Fyans was deployed with the 67th Regiment to India, where he served in the latter stages of the Third Anglo-Maratha War.

Foster Fyans wrote an important first-hand account of the siege of Asirgarh Fort, where around 1,200 defenders held out against constant bombardment from British forces for weeks.

Foster Fyans praised the bravery of the Arab soldiers employed by the Maratha to hold the fort, and described their final surrender to the British.

Foster Fyans avoided sickness in a cholera epidemic and spent much of his time hunting, eating and drinking while being served upon by local army attendants.

Foster Fyans was promoted to the rank of captain during this year.

Foster Fyans then returned to England, but in 1827 he transferred to the 20th Regiment of Foot in order to obtain another posting to India.

Foster Fyans was mostly stationed at Belgaum and in 1832 he again transferred, this time to the 4th Regiment of Foot so that he could secure passage to New South Wales.

In early 1833 Foster Fyans arrived with the 4th Regiment of Foot at Sydney, New South Wales.

Foster Fyans quickly manoeuvred himself into being on good terms with Governor Richard Bourke and was posted to the penal colony of Norfolk Island as captain of the guard.

Foster Fyans arrived at Norfolk Island in March 1833 which was then under the command of Colonel James Thomas Morisset, a depressed man with a disfigured face and a reputation for brutal discipline.

In September 1833, Foster Fyans witnessed the hanging of three convicts for murder while another six were sentenced to death for stealing a boat.

Morisset's mental and physical health declined and on 7 January 1834, he gave full authority to Foster Fyans to act as Commandant on the island.

Around 150 prisoners initially overwhelmed guards stationed at the convict hospital and elsewhere, but Foster Fyans quickly organised his soldiers to counter the outbreak, allowing them to fire freely upon the rebels.

Many were severely beaten to such an extent that Foster Fyans broke his sword hitting them with the flat surface of it.

Foster Fyans ordered special sturdier cat o'nine tails to be used to flog the prisoners and heavier leg-irons with roughened surfaces were manacled to them.

Foster Fyans kept the rebels locked-up, naked in overcrowded jails for many months in irons, inflicting mass floggings with thousands of lashes being meted out.

Foster Fyans declined the offer and was relieved as acting commandant by Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Anderson in April 1834.

Foster Fyans was accused by the judge of obtaining improper evidence that caused Knatchbull to escape conviction.

Foster Fyans found the convicts at Moreton Bay very docile compared to those at Norfolk Island and had little need to order severe punishments upon them.

Foster Fyans had to move these barracks to Eagle Farm and construct a 17 foot high stockade around it.

Foster Fyans got along well with these Aboriginal groups and gave them food and other items in exchange for information and sometimes the return of these fugitives.

Foster Fyans was able to quickly send Graham with a relief crew to recover some of the castaways including Eliza Fraser, who became famous from the incident and whom Fraser Island is named after.

Foster Fyans was instrumental in documenting and reporting the factual details of the shipwreck and the ordeal of the survivors.

In July 1837, the 4th Regiment were ordered to India and Foster Fyans was replaced as commandant at Moreton Bay by Lieutenant-General Sydney Cotton.

Foster Fyans decided to stay in Australia and sold out of his army commission.

The Derwent Company of Charles Swanston had already laid claim to much of the region and Frederick Taylor, the manager of this giant sheep station, ordered Foster Fyans to move on.

Around 275 were gathered, to which the government had assigned Foster Fyans to distribute tomahawks, clothes and blankets.

Foster Fyans refused to give the Aboriginal people the tomahawks, and instead had thrown them into the nearby river.

Foster Fyans was of the opinion that "intimacy" between the settlers and the Aboriginal women and the spread of venereal disease was the basis of much of the conflict.

In late 1837, Foster Fyans received instructions to select a site for a major township in the Corio region.

Foster Fyans concluded that the spot where David Fisher of the Derwent Company had established his hut as the best place and in 1838 this site was proclaimed as the township of Geelong.

Foster Fyans established for himself a cattle property on the west bank of Lake Colac which he sold in 1842.

In 1839, Foster Fyans was ordered to Portland Bay to investigate official reports of deliberate massacring of Aboriginal men and women by raiding parties led by Edward Henty, as well as the "interference with native women" by the employees of the Henty Brothers, who were the pioneer squatters in that region.

Foster Fyans decided to travel overland to Portland Bay and trail-blaze a road from Geelong to that settlement.

Foster Fyans toured the fine pastoral land north of Portland and returned to Geelong via the "magnificent country" around Mount Rouse.

In May 1840, Foster Fyans was appointed as Commissioner of Crown Lands for the Portland Bay district, an area half the size of England.

Foster Fyans returned to Eumeralla with a larger force in early 1842, capturing two leaders and killing two other prominent Aboriginal men during a battle with thirty warriors.

Smythe returned to Geelong and reported the case to Foster Fyans, who organised a well-armed militia of ten Barrabool men to be sent to the Otways to deal with the Gadubanud.

In 1849, Foster Fyans was re-appointed to the position of police magistrate at Geelong and was nominated as the inaugural mayor of the Geelong Town Council.

Foster Fyans became a Justice of the Peace and a judicial magistrate the following year, later being appointed as deputy sheriff for the Geelong region.

In January 1843 Foster Fyans married Elizabeth Alice Cane and they had three daughters and a son, one of the daughters was intellectually disabled and died after setting herself on fire.

Foster Fyans built a family home on his 'Balyang' estate adjacent to the Barwon River in 1846.

Foster Fyans died at his Geelong home 'Balyang' on 23 May 1870.

Foster Fyans was buried at the Eastern Cemetery in Geelong.

Places such as Fyansford and Mount Fyans are named after him, while Foster, Fyans and West Fyans streets in Geelong are named in his honour.