Page:History of Adelaide and vicinity.djvu/425

 MrG.Brookman ADELAIDE AND VICINITY 399 I Brookman organised the Adelaide Prospecting Syndicate, and despatched Mr. W. G. Brookman and Mr. S. W. Pearce to Western Australia to look for likely claims. These fortunate men went to Albany, and across the desert from York ; and it would seem that a specially kind fortune took them by the hand. They were led direct to perhaps the wealthiest and most remarkable belt of gold reefs ever discovered, in Australia at least. The Syndicate which Mr. Brookman organised found a gold estate which proved a source of enormous wealth. Near Kalgoorlie, Messrs. Brookman and Pearce pegged out such famous claims as the Great Boulder, Ivanhoe, Lake View Consols, Associated Mines, Royal Mint, Oroya, Brookman 's Boulder, Kalgoorlie Bank of Elngland, Hannans Proprietary Development Company, and others. To hold this rich group after the leases were taken up called for financial sagacity of a very superior order. The mining regulations of Western Australia contained stringent and difficult labor conditions, so that it required considerable capital to work a single lease up to the provisions, let alone the number possessed by the Adelaide Syndicate. The general of an army, or the leader of a political revolution, would not be required to exercise more judgment, .strategy, and administrative ability than it was necessary for Mr. Brookman to show in the circumstances. His syndicate was possessed of valuable claims, but it needed a hard fight to retain them. Notwithstanding opposition, adverse reports by experts, and the stringent labor conditions, however, Mr. Brookman won the victory, financed, and carried the claims on until companies with large capital were iloated to own and develop them. To attain his ends, he obtained the assistance of other wealthy men in South Australia. Eventually he went to Plngland, where he assisted in establishing some confidence in the Western Australian goldfields at a time when the British investor had reason to fight shy of ventures in those part.s. All the claims already mentioned were taken over by companies formed in London, machinery was purchased, developmental work was carried out, and their mingled output to-day is astonishing. The ease with which most of the claims first discovered were floated in London, the ridiculous over-capitalisation of unproved mines, and the small sums of money applied to real developmental work, so characteristic of mining- operations on a new field, had had the natural effect of causing a severe re-action from the first burst of speculation by European operators in Western Australian enterprises; and upon the legitimate mines, such as those of the Brookman group, the onus was thrown of convincing the capitalistic world of the gold resources of the new region. The result has justified these endeavors. The thud of many batteries, the click of many picks, and the hum of a numerous population now sound over the area which the Adelaide Syndicate pegged out. During a more recent visit to England, Mr. Brookman formed a company to establish smelting works at Fremantle, Western Australia, and these were calculated to become a great saving and advantage to the Kalgoorlie mines. Mr. Brookman is on the directing board of numerous Australian mining companies, and his ingenuity and financial ability have been taxed to their utmost to manage his large interests. He is faithful to South Australia, and believes in spending and investing his money in the Province. He is a very wealthy man, and with such a laudable intention he is bound to greatly benefit the community. He recently erected palatial offices, called Brookman's Building, in Grenfell Street, Adelaide, at a cost of .1^,30,000. And one of his latest acts was the gift of ^15,000 towards the erection of a new building for the South Australian School of Mines in Adelaide; while he also