George Brookman

Sir George Brookman KBE (15 April 1850 – 20 June 1927) was a South Australian businessman who made a fortune from a gold discovery in Western Australia, and is remembered as a generous benefactor of the South Australian School of Mines and Industries and the University of Adelaide.

Brookman was born 15 April 1850 in Glasgow, Scotland, the eldest son of typesetter Benjamin Brookman (16 September 1826 – 11 June 1917) and his wife Jane née Wilson (d. 1 March 1881). The family emigrated to South Australia in 1852 on the Water Lily, arriving at Port Adelaide on 5 May and settled in Prospect. After completing his education at the schools of James Bath and E. C. Mitton, he found employment with grocery firm D & J Fowler. Then, with fellow-employee William Finlayson jun., he took over Fowler's retail arm in King William Street. He set himself up as a stock and share broker and earned a position in the in 1890.

In 1893 he founded, with brother William Brookman and Sam Pearce, the Coolgardie Gold Mining and Prospecting Co. Ltd. syndicate which financed the exploration and proving of a mining lease "Ivanhoe" in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia, in what was later dubbed the "Golden Mile" and made its backers incredibly wealthy. The syndicate owed its success to dogged determination in the face of criticism from experts, as the mineral was in a form that had not been encountered before and through "Brookman's extraordinarily skilful financial transactions and able administration".

He stood successfully for the Central District vacancy in South Australia's Legislative Council in 1901 caused by the resignation of Charles Kingston, who took up a seat in the new Federal Parliament. He was re-elected, but did not stand for the elections of 1910.

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