Geoffrey Drake-Brockman (engineer)

Brigadier Geoffrey Drake-Brockman MC was a Western Australian civil engineer, and an Australian Army officer in both World Wars.
In 1908 he was involved in mapping the route for the railway-line from Kalgoorlie, Western Australia to Port Augusta, South Australia. In 1921 he was appointed commissioner of the Department of the North-West based in Broome; as commissioner he recommended a survey of agricultural land at the Ord River, the planting of cotton and the development of the Kimberley region. In 1946 he was appointed assistant-director of public works, and in 1949 chairman of the Western Australian Transport Board, retiring in 1952.
As a soldier, in World War I he was awarded the Military Cross, and commanded the 9th Field Company in 1917–18. In World War II he was posted to Army Headquarters, Melbourne; as colonel, then brigadier, he occupied senior engineering staff posts.
In retirement, he wrote an autobiography, The Turning Wheel.

Family

His parents were Frederick Slade Drake-Brockman and Grace Bussell. He had four sisters and two brothers, including Major General Edmund Drake-Brockman and Lady Deborah Vernon Hackett.
In 1917, he married Alice Annie Wardlaw Milne in Hertfordshire, England. She died in 1918.
In 1921, he married Henrietta Frances York Jull in Guildford, Western Australia. She became a prolific author and also wrote several plays. They had two children, a girl and a boy. A grandson, Geoffrey was named after him.