Foster Fyans (1790 - 1870)

Born 5 Sep 1790 in Clontarf, County Dublin, Ireland

Husband of Elizabeth Alice (Cane) Fyans — married Jan 1843 in Victoria, Australia

Descendants

Died 23 May 1870 at age 79 in Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Biography

Birth

Foster Fyans was a soldier, penal administrator and public servant, commandant of the Moreton Bay penal settlement, acting commandant of the second convict settlement at Norfolk Island, 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 was born on 5th September 1790 at Clontarf, County Dublin, Ireland.^[1] He was a son of John Fyans and Margaret unknown.^[2]

He joined the British Army in 1810, seeing service in the Peninsula War. From 1817 he served in India. In 1833, Fyans joined the 4th Regiment of Foot at Sydney, New South Wales, and was posted to Norfolk Island as captain of the guard. The following year he became the acting commandant. He was commandant at the Moreton Bay convict settlement from 1835 to 1837.^[1]

He sold his commission in 1837 and sailed for the fledgling town of Melbourne in the Port Phillip District (later the Colony of Victoria), and took up the post of police magistrate at Geelong after the settlers there had asked the government for protection. He established himself on the Moorabool River at the site of present-day Fyansford, and set about the task of siting the town of Geelong. This involved building a breakwater in Corio Bay to provide a sheltered harbour that became the premier wool-exporting port of the colony. In 1840 he was appointed as commissioner of crown lands for the Portland Bay district, an area half the size of England. He ran his own cattle station west of Lake Colac, later selling this and settling in Geelong in 1845.^[1]

In January 1843 Fyans married Elizabeth Cane,^[3] and they had two daughters and a son. His wife died in March 1858, aged 42 years.

In 1849 Fyans was reappointed police magistrate and was nominated as the inaugural mayor of the Geelong Town Council. Following the discovery of gold in Victoria he retired in 1853, and began to write his recollections.^[1]

He passed away, aged 80 years, on 23rd May 1870 at Balyang, Geelong, Victoria. ^[4]

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3} Wikipedia profile: Foster Fyans; accessed 28 Sep 2019
2. ↑ ascertained from death record
3. ↑ Victoria Marriage Index #741/1843
4. ↑ Death Record: # 4270 / 1870 Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages: Victoria, Australia
   (Name: Foster FYANS); (Place: NOT STATED, VIC); (Birthplace: CLOU);(Mother: Margaret UNKNOWN) (Father: John FYANS; (Spouse: Elizabeth Alice CANE)

• Brown, P L. 'Fyans, Foster (1790–1870)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, published first in hardcopy 1966; accessed online 13 Feb 2020.