John Foster (1792–1875) was the eldest son of a Yorkshire farmer and landowner who came to Tasmania as a free settler in 1823, with his widowed mother, Jane, and youngest brother, Henry. The family received grants of land near Campbell Town where they became successful farmers. Foster later expanded his business interests by acquiring landholdings in Victoria, by trading goods he produced and by becoming a shipowner. He was appointed a Justice of the Peace in 1836 and, between 1866 and 1874, he represented Huon electoral division on the Tasmanian Legislative Council Early years John Foster was the eldest son of John Foster (1758–1816), a farmer and landowner of Armitstead Hall, Settle, Yorkshire, England, and his wife Jane, née Dowbiggin. Armitstead Hall was a spacious home at the centre of an estate of about 370 acres. Foster was educated at Heath School, Halifax, and Kemplay's Academy, Leeds with the expectation that he would follow his father to manage the family's farm and other landholdings. However, his father's death, at the age of 57, occurred just after the end of the Napoleonic Wars and coincided with a severe decline in England's rural economy that depressed product and land values for over a decade. Debts had previously been incurred in efforts to expand and develop the family estate but interest payments, together with falling returns from produce and difficulty in collecting rent from tenants, placed major pressures on the family's finances. Adding to those pressures was the need to establish the legal career of Foster's younger brother William (1794-1866), who had studied at Cambridge and was, by then in London. William Foster became Solicitor General for New South Wales in 1827 and pursued a legal and political career in Sydney until 1854. Foster's youngest brother, Henry (1809–1876), was much younger and therefore still living with his mother and eldest brother. Faced with the reality that the family estate in Yorkshire was uneconomic, Foster sought other options for his future, including employment, but finally chose emigration to Tasmania in 1822. Emigration to Tasmania Foster, his mother Jane and younger brother, Henry, sailed from London in December 1822, aboard the Berwick, and arrived the following June. On arrival, Foster and his mother were each granted adjoining holdings of 500 acres, fronting onto the Macquarie River, near what was to become Campbell Town. Together they built a house that they named Fosterville. By 1827 the