The Foster and District Historical Society (previously the South Gippsland Historical Society) was formed on 3 August 1973.
We operate a volunteer-run museum situated in the Main Street of Foster, Victoria.
See how the district developed from the discovery of gold in 1870, the growth of the dairy and fishing industries, the establishment of Wilsons Promontory National Park in 1906 - Victoria's first National Park, to the thriving district of the 21st century.
The museum complex comprises:
- the former Foster Post Office, built in 1890
- Agnes State School (100 yrs in 2012) but the building itself is much older
- a furnished pioneer cottage and bark hut,
- a wooden model of Foster in the 1940s and 50s,
- the former Foster Gaol (decommissioned in 2009!)
- the boat belonging to gold-seeker H.B. Lasseter
- and the post-war prefabricated building - now Crawford Hall - is the old Yanakie School
The museum is set in a terraced garden below Kaffir Hill, a former gold-mining site.
The Foster & District Historical Society is an accredited museum through Museums Australia (Vic). It has been appointed by the Public Record Office of Victoria as a Place of Deposit for nonpermanent public records. It is an affiliated member of the Royal Historical Society of Victoria, and a member of the South Gippsland Historical Network.
