Geoffrey Drake-Brockman
DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Geoffrey MC MIEAust. MInstT (1885-1977)
Geoffrey Drake-Brockman, president of the Institution of Engineers, Australia in 1940, died in Perth on 27 December 1977. He was aged 92.
Drake-Brockman, who was also chairman of the Perth (now Western Australia) Division in 1937, was the second and last surviving of four presidents to be elected from WA[1]. The West Australian, in a story headlined "Pioneer engineer dies", re called that Drake-Brockman was the man who walked across the Nullarbor to survey the first railway route in 1907 and later supervised the construction of Eyre Highway.
Drake-Brockman, a descendent of two pioneering families, was born at Guildford, Perth, on 2 November 1885. His father was the surveyor general in Western Australia, Frederick Drake-Brockman[2]. His mother, formerly Grace Bussell, became known as the "Grace Darling of Australia[3]" when, in 1876 at the age of 16, she and Sam Isaacs (Aboriginal name Yebbie) rescued people from the grounded ship Georgette off the colony's south-west coast.
Drake-Brockman joined the Public Works Department as a cadet engineer in 1903 and his early professional career was spent mainly on railway construction. In World War I he served with the first at Gallipoli and later in France where he won the Military Cross.
In 1921 he was appointed commissioner for the north west and lived in Broome until his appointment in 1926 as engineer for the north west in the PWD. He was responsible for several major projects, particularly in jetty construction.
Drake-Brockman re-joined the army as a lieutenant colonel in September 1939 and was appointed CRE Western Command. In 1941 he was appointed deputy director of engineering services with the rank of colonel and in 1943, promoted to brigadier, he was appointed director of fortifications and works.
After World War II he was appointed the PWD's assistant director of works. In 1949, at the age of 64, he resigned from the Department to become chairman of the Transport Board of Western Australia a position he held until 1952. He remained a member of the Board until 1958.
Drake-Brockman's wife, Henrietta, who died in 1968, was a well known authoress. In 1960 Drake-Brockman also ventured into the literary field when his book "The Turning Wheel" was published. The book recounted his career as engineer, soldier and administrator. Despite blindness, he worked on tape recording a second autobiography during the last two years.
He is survived by his daughter, Julia, who is the wife of Sir John Moore, president of the Australian Conciliation and Arbitration Commission, and his son, Paris, who is an engineer with the Commonwealth Government.
References:
Drake-Brockman, Geoffrey, The Turning Wheel, Paterson Brokensha, Perth, 1960.
Engineers Australia, Pioneer president dies at 92, Institution of Engineers Australia, 27 January 1978, p. 14.
Peter Cowan, Drake-Brockman, Geoffrey (1885–1977), Australian Dictionary of Biographies, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University.
Alan Jackson, Brockman & Drake-Brockman Family Tree the Australian Branch 1830-1993, A Jackson, Menora WA, 1994, p. 31.
Northern Times, He was the first N W Commissioner, 2 November 1967, p. 13.
The West Australian, 31 December 1977, p. 7.
Publications:
Chairmans Address to the Perth Division, 5 April 1937 (JIEA 9 1937 p. 446)
Presidential Address to the Annual General Meeting of the Institution of Engineers, Australia, 17 March 1941 (JIEA 13 1941 p. 81)
- ↑ For a list of National Presidents from WA, go to National Presidents from WA (1920 - ...).
- ↑ As well as an entry for Geoffrey in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, his wife Henrietta, his father Frederick and his brother Edmund all have entries in the ADB.
- ↑ Grace Darling (1815-1842), became famous when, with her lighthouse keeper father, she rescued nine passengers from the wrecked steamer Forfarshire in Britain's Farne Islands in stormy seas in 1838.
