Foster Fyans Foster Fyans ( 1790 – 1870 ) , soldier , penal administrator and public servant , was acting commandant of the second convict settlement at Norfolk Island , the first police magistrate at Geelong , and commissioner of crown land s for the Portland Bay pastoral district in the Port Phillip District of New South Wales . Fyans was baptised at Clontarf , Dublin and 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 . In January 1834 an abortive mutiny led by John Knatchbull resulted in nine deaths and many wounded , and led to the recall of the commandant , James Morisset . As the next senior officer , Fyans acted until the new commandant arrived . He treated the mutineers harshly , keeping them locked in jail for many months in irons , and inflicting mass floggings . He regarded the convict settlement there as “ a disgrace to England ” and tried to replace slackness by strict control . He later became commandant at the Moreton Bay convict settlement . He sold his commission in 1837 , 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 . He also constructed a rock ford across the Barwon River in 1837 , which gave name to the area now known as Breakwater , an eastern industrial and residential suburb of Geelong . The ford stopped the inflow of salt water to the fresh water river , thus supplying the town with fresh river water . The Fyansford Hotel is located nearby to the site of Fyan ' s first camp . In 1839 Fyans was ordered to Portland to investigate claims of “ interference with native women ” by ex - convict shepherds employed by squatters ( pastoralists ) the Henty brothers , a revenge killing by Aboriginal people , and the subsequent shooting of a number of Aboriginal people , women as well as men , by a Henty raiding party . He found that the accusations against the Henty brothers were false , and they were appointed as magistrates in the district . ( see Bassett , pp . 444 – 7 ) . In 1840 he was appointed as commissioner of crown lands for the Portland Bay district , an area half the size of England . His duties included making government returns for the licensed runs and their occupants , receiving their annual £10 licence fee , and maintaining law and order between the squatters and the Aborigines . Described by Kiddle as “ a man of hasty temper and a high hand ” his word was law in the district . He ran his own cattle station west of Lake Colac , later selling this and settling in Geelong in 1845 . In January 1843 Fyans married Elizabeth Alice Cane , and they had two daughters and a son . His wife died in March 1858 , aged 42 . In 1849 he 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 . He died at his Geelong home ‘ Balyang ’ on 23 May 1870 .