William Brookes (miner)

William Brookes (April 1834 – 4 September 1910) was a gold miner, pastoralist and paper manufacturer.
Brookes was born in Northampton, England, to Frances Campion and John Brookes. He arrived in Australia at the age of 18 and immediately went to Sandhurst where he set up a profitable business as a grating maker and began to invest in mining ventures.Alison Patrick, 'Brookes, Herbert Robinson (1867–1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brookes-herbert-robinson-5372/text9089, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 August 2017. The most successful of his investments was his investment of £25 in his stake of the Golden Fleece mine which netted him £30,000 when a deep shaft struck a rich reef of gold.
 
He married wife Catherine Margaret, née Robinson, on 10th January 1865 and they had seven children: William Ernest (1865 – 1879), businessman, pastoralist, public official and philanthropist Herbert Brookes who married Ivy Deakin, Mabel Catherine 1870- 1916), Percy (1872-1873), May. 1874 – 1938), businessman Harold Brookes and the champion tennis player Sir Norman Brookes.Alison Patrick, 'Brookes, Herbert Robinson (1867–1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brookes-herbert-robinson-5372/text9089, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 August 2017.
After spending 18 years in Sandhurst (now Bendigo) in 1871 he and his family moved to Melbourne where he built a grand house called Brookwood in Queens Rd, St Kilda. In 1878, he moved the family to Farina, South Australia, where for two years he oversaw the completion of part of the Central Australia Railway.E. K. Sinclair, ‘The Spreading Tree, A history of APM and Amcor 1844-1989’, Allen and Unwin, 1990.
In May 1882 Archibald Currie and William Brookes purchased the Melbourne Paper Company located near Princess Bridge at Southbank for £47,000 from George Ramsden, the son of its founder Samuel Ramsden. The firm Australian Paper Mills (A.P.M.) was formed in 1895 with the combination of the Southbank mill with the mills at Broadford and Geelong.Pitkethly, Anne. Paper Manufacturing in Victoria, from European Settlement to Federation (privately published), Melbourne, Vic., 2017.The company's capital was £107,000 and its output was approximately 730 tons per year. The following year, it became the Australian Paper Mills Company Ltd. Three generations of the Brookes family: William, sons Herbert Brookes and Norman Brookes, and grandsons John Brookes and Wilfred Deakin Brookes had a significant impact on the Australian paper industry.E. K. Sinclair, ‘The Spreading Tree, A history of APM and Amcor 1844-1989’, Allen and Unwin, 1990.
In the late 1880s he took up large pastoral leaseholds at “Brookwood”, “Westbury” and “Texas” in Central Queensland. Brookwood remained in the ownership of the family company William Brookes and Co. until it was was sold in 1964.
He later became a shareholder and director of the engineering firm Austral Otis.
In 1889 he bought the notable home and garden at Penola, 222 Alton Rd, Mt Macedon which remained in the Brookes family until 1951. 
He died on 4 September in 1910 leaving an estate valued at £172,000.Alison Patrick, 'Brookes, Herbert Robinson (1867–1963)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/brookes-herbert-robinson-5372/text9089, published first in hardcopy 1979, accessed online 14 August 2017.
Category:1834 births
Category:1910 deaths
Category:English gold miner
Category:Pastoralists
Category:Paper manufacturer