The Victorian School of Forestry (VSF) at Creswick offered the first formal Forestry Course in Australia and is the longest continuous course, now a part of the University of Melbourne’s School of Ecosystem and Forest Sciences.  The origins of the VSF are lost, with a range of individuals identified as founders, most notably the politician A.J. Peacock, whose role is memorialised on a metal plaque installed on the gates of the school in 1952. This paper draws on new evidence to introduce John Johnstone, the Superintendent of State Plantations, who oversaw the State Nursery and Plantation at Creswick, as the person who initiated the scheme and did the work to establish the School at Creswick. We will look at Johnstone, described by one writer as ‘a glorified landscape gardener’, his background and his place in Forestry in Victoria and consider why he was omitted from the historiography of Australian forestry.