The buildings and grounds were purchased for £1,163 7s 3d in 1909 by the Victorian Government and refurbished at the instigation of John Johnstone, (Superintendent of State Plantations), the direction of Donald McLeod,[5] (Minister of Forests, 1904–1909) together with Sir Peter McBride[6] (Minister of Forests, 1909–1913) and the support of Sir Alexander Peacock,[7] who was then the parliamentary representative for the seat of Creswick and later Premier of Victoria.

[8] The State Government opened the school on 29 October 1910, attended by a large delegation of dignitaries, Members of the Victorian Parliament, and their companions.

VSF was a residential school having the old hospital wards available as classrooms, well equipped kitchen and nurses quarters and other rooms suitable for staff and student accommodation.

Land rehabilitation and the need to create softwood resources meant that some of the first plantations of radiata pine were established around 1900 and became part of the school demonstration forest.

Johnstone was born in Scotland in 1858 and served his gardening and forestry apprenticeship at Gordon Castle, and after getting married decided to emigrate to Victoria.

[12] In 1914, the British Association met in Australia and among the many distinguished visitors was Sir David Ernest Hutchins, a graduate of the École nationale des eaux et forêts at Nancy in France.

Australia's first Inspector-General of Forests Charles Edward Lane Poole also an alma mater of the French forestry school, invited Hutchins to tour all Australian States and New Zealand.

Hutchins reported in 1916 on the overall parlous state of forest management but wrote enthusiastically about both Victoria and the progress being made at the Forestry School.

[19][20][21] Reg was queuing with four other soldiers for rations when they were all killed by a direct shell landing in their midst,[22] although it is often more colourfully reported that he was shot "when dashing out of his dugout to rescue a bottle of rum" on New Year's Eve.

[10][23] A number of VSF graduates volunteered for military service in WW2 with some joining units deployed to the UK and other places as forestry companies in the Royal Australian Engineers (RAE) and served with distinction to produce timber for the war efforts.

[26] 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.

[1] Lecturing staff included Norman William Jolly,[27][28] Charles Earnest Carter[29] (ex Principal of VSF), Hugh Richard Gray[30] and A.

[32] 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)[33] that took many years to heal.

[1] By the late 1950s, Commission staff began to produce a stream of peer-reviewed research into the silviculture of key eucalypt species, especially on germination, growth rates and other aspects of productivity.

Over time, many VSF graduates left the Forests Commission and went on to establish notable careers in other fields with the National Park Service, Fisheries and Wildlife, Alpine Resorts, Country Fire Authority, Soil Conservation Authority, LandCare, Land Conservation Council, Melbourne Water, teaching at tertiary institutions, consultancy, environmental NGO's, research organisations like the CSIRO and Universities, local government, the private sector, interstate and overseas.

[1] Also because of the Victorian Public Service Board (PSB) rules that prevailed at the time, many Associate Diploma holders employed by the Forests Commission held fears about jobs and promotions going to graduates with Degrees and their ability to work interstate.

[1][39][40]Students generally entered the school on fully funded scholarships and were "bonded" to work for the Forests Commission for a period of three years upon completion of their Diplomas, in what often turned out to be “a-career-for-life”.

[43] After graduation in 1941 and a short stint with the Forests Commission on the Toorongo Plateau near Noojee supervising the 1939 bushfire salvage, he served in the Royal Australian Navy as a submariner where he was seriously wounded.

[44] Later taking up a position as senior lecturer at the University of Melbourne in 1958 he was recruited to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations in 1963 to lead forestry projects in Nigeria before ending up in Rome in 1968.

Among the more important samples are the specimens prepared by Government Botanist Baron Sir Ferdinand von Mueller in 1874 and Dr James Hamlyn Willis, who studied at VSF from 1928 to 1930 and went on to become one of the school's most successful and respected graduates.

The tree was the sole survivor of a group that had been cut down by Turkish soldiers to cover their trenches with the timber and branches during the ferocious battle in 1915.

[54]HRH Prince Charles stayed overnight at VSF during his visit on 28 October 1974 and planted a Eucalyptus leucoxylon (yellow gum) near the science laboratory.

In addition to rigorous academic study, VSF had a very strong focus on preparing students suited to Victorian conditions and on acquiring practical skills of forestry.

[12][56] A small park was set aside for the preservation of Koalas by the Minister for Forests, Mr Albert Lind, in November 1942 to mark the centenary of the township of Creswick.

In February 1977 a bushfire swept through a large part of the demonstration forest and destroyed many fine old stands of timber established in the 1880s including a plot of ponderosa pine that had been planted for sailing ship masts.

[2] But the era of vocational training in government institutions gave way to university education and the generous fully funded scholarships from the Forests Commission came to an end.

[26] VSF was then renamed the School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences but retained a basic degree structure, increased the variety of courses, again including diplomas, and greatly extending research, from honours and masters projects to PhDs and post-doctoral level.

Numerous international students studied at Creswick, other faculties and organisations also used the campus, and a timber trade training centre was established nearby.

[1] The school celebrated its centenary in 2010 and while the tempo has slowed the Creswick campus remains a major center of Australian forest science.

This information was provided in a letter dated March 1973 to the Principal at VSF, Alan Eddy by Sibley Elliott who was a student in 1916 when the emblem was designed.