His parents married in Sydney and travelled to India in 1817, Wales in 1822, Ireland in 1825 and settled down in 1829 in Brush Farm,[1] Eastwood, built by Blaxland in about 1820, and the birthplace of the Australian wine industry.

Blaxland, who took up land adjoining Forster's run, encountered a similar situation and named his holding Pandemonium.

They drove over 30,000 sheep and 800 cattle more than 600 kms north over months, before choosing an area in Taribelung bunda country, along the lower reaches of the recently surveyed Burnett River.

Seeing the destruction of native habitats and foods by the large non-native herds, Taribelung people repeatedly tried to remove the sheep, and were fired on in retaliation.

[6][7] Forster sold out of the Tirroan property not long after, but remained in the Wide Bay-Burnett region until 1856, retaining ownership over a number of other pastoral leases.

He stated that "Their rude arts and manufactures, their language, their manners and customs, are all distinctly primitive" and "to preserve, as an organic whole or nation, any inferior race, even one of superior tenacity, when the conflict for room arises, is plainly impossible".

The first was an intermittent type of warfare between "the blacks" and the occupiers, the second was "a kind of open war", and the final stage being an acceptance of defeat by the original owners of the land.

"[11] In 1848, the colonial Government of New South Wales attempted to reduce the violence of the Aboriginal population by organising a paramilitary Native Police force to subdue them, Forster was strongly and publicly critical of its methods and its commandant, Walker.

[12][13] When responsible government was granted, Forster was elected to the first Legislative Assembly in 1856 as member for United Counties of Murray and St Vincent.

[14] In February 1875, Forster became Colonial Treasurer in Robertson's third ministry and a year later was appointed Agent-General for New South Wales in London.

His volumes in verse were The Weirwolf: a Tragedy (1876), The Brothers: a Drama (1877), Midas (1884),[16] works of a vigorous and poetic mind, which in spite of their length can still be read with interest.