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.

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.

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.

[2] Foster, his mother Jane and younger brother, Henry, sailed from London in December 1822, aboard the Berwick, and arrived the following June.

John Foster died at Hobart on 27 June 1875, and was buried in the family vault at Cornelian Bay Church of England cemetery.