page_title: Victorian School of Forestry
section_title: Relationship with other Australian tertiary institutions
hierarchical_section_title: Victorian School of Forestry / Relationship with other Australian tertiary institutions
caption_attribution_description: English: VSF first students
context_page_description: The Victorian School of Forestry was established in October 1910 at Creswick, in the Australian state of Victoria. It was located at the former Creswick Hospital, built in 1863 during the gold rush. The creation of VSF was one of the many recommendations of a Royal Commission held between 1897 and 1901 into forest degradation. The first tertiary forestry school in Australia, VSF was administered by the Forests Commission Victoria until 1980, when VSF amalgamated with the University of Melbourne to become that institution's School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences. From 1910 to 1980, 522 students completed the Diploma of Forestry at VSF.
context_section_description: The twentieth century had started optimistically with the Federation of Australia, but co-operation between the states was hesitant. The leaders of the small state forest agencies met in 1911 and recommended that Australia needed to conserve sufficient forests and start plantations. Although they had already established forestry organisations as best they could, they needed better ways of recruiting and training foresters. Within a few months of each other, Victoria and South Australia started forestry schools but took paths that reflected their roots. Western Australia and NSW also started forestry schools at Ludlow and Narara in the 1920s but these schools only lasted for a few years.
  An Australian Forestry School (AFS) was first mooted in 1916 and later established, initially in Adelaide in 1926, before moving to the Canberra suburb of Yarralumla in 1927 under the Commonwealth Department of National Development. Students undertaking the first two years of an appropriately designed science course at their (then sole) State University and then proceeding to Canberra to undertake a Diploma course over two years. The home university granted a Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree. Sixteen students representing all states, including Alf Lawrence from Victoria, were enrolled in 1926. Lecturing staff included Norman William Jolly, Charles Earnest Carter (ex Principal of VSF), Hugh Richard Gray and A. Rule while Charles Edward Lane Poole acted as Principal. The prestigious Schlich Medal was awarded annually to the outstanding forestry student at the Australian Forestry School from 1928. However, Victoria withdrew from the arrangement in 1930 and instead continued to support the VSF at Creswick, thereby starting a rift within the recently formed Institute of Foresters of Australia (IFA) that took many years to heal.
  While other states cautiously relinquished their fledgling forestry schools, Victoria continued with supporting the VSF Diploma course after the Commonwealth started its national Australian Forestry School in 1926, partly due to an acrimonious dispute with the Commonwealth Inspector-General of Forestry and Principal of the School, Charles Edward Lane Poole, over the standard of the Victorian foresters. The Institute of Foresters of Australia, founded in 1935, was also racked over its refusal to grant full membership to foresters holding the Victorian Diploma.
  However, the first twenty years of the Australian Forestry School proved difficult. The Great Depression, the Second World War, the states’ suspicions of the Commonwealth, and the abrasive manner of the school's head, Charles Lane Poole, all acted to reduce the number of students being sent there; one year there were none and several times during the war years it was nearly closed. Upon Lane Poole's retirement in January 1945 Dr Maxwell Ralph Jacobs was appointed Principal, a position he held until 1959. The post war intake of students increased to between 15 and 30 with many from New Zealand until a school was opened at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch. By 1965 the responsibilities of the Australian Forestry School were transferred to the Australian National University in Canberra and it developed a four-year Bachelor of Science in Forestry degree and postgraduate research degrees.
  From the mid-1940s, under the stewardship of the Chairman of the Forests Commission, Alfred Vernon Galbraith, students from Creswick extended their studies at the University of Melbourne to gain a Bachelor of Forest Science after the University established its own Forestry School in 1938. The two institutions worked well together and eventually, the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Melbourne was created in 1973. The arrangement whereby Creswick diplomates could complete a degree with two years additional study at the University continued. Some VSF graduates continued their studies towards a master's degree or PhD research. By the late 1950s, Commission staff began to produce a stream of peer-reviewed research into the silviculture of key eucalypt spec
caption: In 1910, six students began classes at the Victorian School of Forestry. Pictured on the steps of Tremearne House in 1912 are the graduates. From left to right: Walter Henry Horn, Reginald Graham Lindsay, Henry O. Felstead (Nursery superintendent), Norman L. Boston (Nursery staff), J. Sampson, A. Ken (Nursery staff), Arthur H. Warren. Source: Creswick Campus Historical Collection.
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