GUEST SPEAKER - JOHN CARY 'THE ENIGMA OF FOSTER FYANS'

THE ENIGMA OF FOSTER FYANS.

Foster Fyans was a member of the original 1855 Committee of Management of the Geelong Botanic Gardens and a Trustee of the Gardens from 1860 to 1865.

Fyans had a full and adventurous life – the Peninsular War in Spain, a long period as a military officer in India, Captain of the Guard at Norfolk Island, Commandant at Morton Bay and the founder of the settlement at Geelong.

Fyans’ subsequent career as a magistrate and Commissioner of Crown Lands shines a light on the early European settlement of western Victoria, the cultural clashes with Aboriginal people and his changing response to their dispossession.

Dr John Cary is a former academic at the University of Melbourne, where he is an Honorary Principal Fellow in the School of Agriculture, Food and Ecosystem Sciences. His family has a long association with Geelong.

Copies of his recent book Frontier Magistrate: The Enigmatic Foster Fyans, Australian Scholarly Publishing ($49), will be available for sale for $30. The book won the Judges’ Special Prize in the 2023 Victorian Community History Awards.

Join the Friends for supper followed by our Guest Speaker, author John Cary, John will be speaking on ‘Foster Fyans’, a notable figure in Geelong’s early history, including being the first Chief Magistrate and on the first Committee of Management of Geelong Botanic Gardens.  

The large meeting room is located at the rear of the Gardens and you can enter the rear carpark from the corner of Eastern Park Circuit and Holt Road, East Geelong.  Location Map Here  Walk to the top of the carpark and the large meeting room is in the second green portable building.

$20 members $30 non members