George Brockway: the forgotten conservationist by Roger Underwood
Submitted by Ian Kealley
My career as a forester, and the career of famous forester George Brockway, overlapped by exactly two days. On January 2nd, 1963, immediately after graduation from Forestry School, I was appointed an Assistant District Forest Officer and posted to the Forests Department’s Mundaring District, whose office was at Mundaring Weir. On my second day on the job, a distinguished gentleman called in to the office, and I was introduced to him. It was Mr George Brockway, who was retiring on that day, and nostalgically revisiting the scene of his first appointment, nearly 40 years previously.
Mr Brockway was a tall, spare, slightly stooped man in his mid-60s, with the sort of deep-set eyes and steady gaze of a man who has spent many years in outback Australia, as indeed he had. He greeted me courteously, and gravely shook my hand and wished me well in my future career, before heading out for a day in the bush with my boss, DFO Peter Hewett. I never met him again, but through talking to others and reading his articles and listening to his broadcasts, I came to know him, and I was inspired by his achievements and his lifetime devotion to his profession. I also discovered that the old hut I was batching in at the time had been built for George in the 1920s, giving me a direct link to the great man. For George Brockway was widely regarded as one of Australia’s greatest foresters, and had well and truly earned the nickname (bestowed nearly 30 years later) of being “the forgotten conservationist” (see End Note 1i)
George Ernest Brockway (always known to his colleagues as George, but as Ern to his family) was born in 1900 in the Perth suburb of Claremont (2)ii. He had an uncle who was an orchardist at Karragullen in the Perth hills, the property bordering on the adjacent jarrah forest. George spent a lot of his youth working in the orchard and exploring the neighboring bush, experiences which led to his desire to become a forester. He studied forestry at the University of Adelaide under the great pioneering forester Norman Jolly. He graduated in 1922 and was appointed as a Forest Officer in the embryo Forests Department of WA; he was one of the first four Australian-born professional foresters to work in this state (3)iii.
Although only aged 21, Brockway was sent to Mundaring Weir and placed in charge of the department’s Mundaring District. This was the first forestry district established in the south-west forest, and it was an important one. The main responsibility was management and restoration of the degraded forests on the Helena Catchment – the water supply catchment for the Goldfields Water Supply Scheme. Effective catchment protection was the key to the water supply scheme.
Brockway had to build up the administration of the new forestry district from nothing, as well as instituting professional management on forests that for many years had been ravaged by uncontrolled timber cutting, ringbarking and intense bushfires (4).iv
His most notable achievement in those years was the evolution of a systematic approach to bushfire management. He built the State’s first fire lookouts (at Mt Dale and Mt Gungin), installed the first field telephone lines, recruited and trained fire crews, built roads and laid down the procedures for effective forest firefighting. He also instituted the systematic ‘controlled burning’ of strategic fire breaks to assist with controlling wildfires (5)v. The fire control system Brockway developed for the Helena State Forests was ultimately extended right across the forests of the south-west and then adopted by forest services in the other Australian states.
George Brockway in 1923 when he was DFO at Mundaring Weir
After setting the Mundaring forests on the right course, Brockway was transferred south where he worked on the establishment of professional forestry in the Kirup and Pemberton areas. However, at about this time he had a falling-out with the department hierarchy, and resigned, becoming a surveyor (6)vi. According to Eric Hopkins (who started his forestry career under Brockway), George was a man who “did not suffer fools gladly”, nor did he appreciate the old-fashioned attitudes and rigidity of the Public Service of the day. Moreover, Brockway was a teetotaller, and something of a purist, setting very high standards of behaviour on and off the job for himself and his staff. It is not hard to see how characteristics like this might have led to some career challenges.
However, it was not long before he was brought back into the fold. In 1929, foreshadowing his future passion, he published a pamphlet called Advice to Settlers in which he argued against the widespread clearing of farms because of the devastating effect on soils and water supplies. This document is now considered to have been the first prescription for conservation in the WA wheatbelt. Brockway recommended:
Prior to commencement of clearing, [settlers] should give serious consideration to the importance of maintaining in its natural state a fair proportion of the existing timber.
He went on to emphasise:
The many advantages provided by trees, including fuel, timber, shade, shelter for stock and birds and the aesthetic appeal of trees cannot be gainsaid.
It would be another 25 years or more before these ideas became acceptable in rural communities.
However, turning back the clock, in 1933 Brockway was appointed Officer in Charge of the department’s Goldfields region and now began on his life’s work. Although there had been ranger staff in the Goldfields since the late 1890s, Brockway was the first professionally trained forest officer to work there. It was an enormous jurisdiction. As Eric Hopkins remembers:
I was a high school student in Kalgoorlie just after the war and I managed to secure a vacation job in the forestry nursery, watering the seedlings. My first recollection of Mr Brockway was seeing him drive up to the nursery in a very dusty, but well-maintained Ford utility after one of his bush trips. He spent most of his working life driving, camping and inspecting the rangelands and woodlands from Halls Creek in the north to Esperance in the south and from Northam to the Nullarbor (7)vii
As the Goldfields forester, Brockway had four main duties, all of which required him to spend the bulk of his time in the bush. The first was oversight of the massive firewood industry supplying the mines and the Water Supply pumping stations (8)viii. He had to lay out the cutting areas, ensure good standards of utilisation and then manage the regeneration of the cut-over forests. This work was being carried out over a huge area west and south of Kalgoorlie, with the woodlines extending hundreds of miles into the bush.
The second was the control of the sandalwood industry. Sandalwood harvesting took place all over the rangelands, with small, isolated teams of contractors pulling the trees and producing the cut wood for transport to the market in Perth. Brockway laid down the regulations about what size trees could be cut, and carried out spot checks on operations and on the quantities of wood harvested. He also undertook the first studies into the complexities of sandalwood regeneration.
The third job was the mapping the forests and elucidating the botanical resource of the inland. Brockway discovered a number of new species (and one of these was named after him, the Dundas mahogany, botanical name Eucalyptus brockwayi). During his field work Brockway became the first person to collect seed from the native trees of the region – something that led to one of his greatest achievements, as we will see below.
Dundas mahogany (E. brockwayi) in the Goldfields woodlands
Finally, Brockway played a huge role in the conservation of remnant vegetation in the wheatbelt, and in promoting trees on farms. He was responsible for the creation of hundreds of reserves from Vacant Crown Land, which later became the system of small nature reserves scattered across the agricultural region.
In promoting the protection of trees and the planting of trees on farms, Brockway was the pioneer. Initially it was a lonely task, as the culture of the day was all for clearing trees, not keeping or planting them. George wrote numerous articles for agricultural journals and country newspapers, and delivered talks on the ABC’s country hour … mostly to an unsympathetic audience. In one exchange that became famous, he wrote an article that set out 16 reasons why farmers should plant trees. An officer of the Department of Agriculture responded setting out 17 reasons why farmers should never plant trees. Number 17 was that the farmer might drive into a tree on his way home from the pub on a Friday night.
Nevertheless, Brockway persisted. His first move was to establish a nursery at Kalgoorlie, the first in Australia that focused entirely on raising seedlings of local native trees. These were used in a wonderful project of tree planting in Kalgoorlie itself, the end result being an inland city with perhaps the finest street trees in the world. Brockway designed the entire project with a different species on each street, and with a focus on rare and unusual local eucalypts with beautiful blossom. He even developed a new hybrid species (the Torwood) which became a very popular ornamental tree (9)ix
Brockway was eventually superseded at Kalgoorlie by another famous “inland forester” Phil Barrett, allowing him to focus all his attention onto the wheatbelt. He arranged for the Kalgoorlie nursery to be transferred to Dryandra, and then later into Narrogin. During this time, as Eric Hopkins recalls:
George installed a series of arboreta throughout the wheatbelt, the aim of which was to demonstrate which tree species were most suitable for planting for varying purposes and on varying soil types. The arboreta were established on farms with the assistance of forward-looking farmers, and they ranged from Geraldton to Esperance and everywhere in between. George’s main interests were in creating shelter to minimise soil erosion, but he also promoted trees as ornamentals for planting around homesteads. His special favourites were the coral gum (E torquata), the red flowering mallee (E erythronema), and the ever popular erythrocorys and caesia. By the 1950s, however, interest was beginning to focus on salinity, and George began to include salt-tolerant species in his plantings.
George’s knowledge about trees was also made use of by the Rottnest Island authority. Areas of the island were becoming degraded by salt spray off the lakes. Brockway demonstrated how this could be ameliorated by planting moort (E. platypus) – a species naturally occurring in areas subject to sea spray on the south coast. It is now found all over Rottnest and considered by most people to be native to the island.
An interesting aspect of George Brockway’s field work was that Mrs Brockway often accompanied him. This is not so unusual these days(10)x, but was frowned upon fifty years or more ago. Mrs Brockway was an enthusiastic artist, and loved to sketch and collect images on the field trips. However she lost some of her enthusiasm for bush camping in later years, as forester Phil Shedley recalled (11)xi:
In September 1951 I was assigned to accompany George Brockway on one of his field trips up to the Carnarvon/Murchison area where there was a dispute simmering between pastoralists and banana growers over the cutting of mulga fence posts and poles on pastoral leases. My job was to share the driving and camping duties and gain experience. I was greatly impressed with George’s knowledge of the flora, his ability to live off the land and cope with harsh conditions and above all to make everyone we encountered feel at ease in his presence. The dispute with the banana growers and pastoralists was sorted out amicably. Mrs Brockway was accompanying George, as usual.
On this occasion, George had arranged for Mrs Brockway to stay at the New Norcia mission, where she could use this as a base while doing some painting, while we were away camping further north. On reaching the monastery buildings we took her bags upstairs to her room. It was a warm spring day and the whole building was swarming with blowflies and bush flies. There was no flywire on any of the doors or windows. To George’s dismay, Mrs Brockway put her foot down and refused to stay there, leaving George the embarrassing task of cancelling the booking without offending the monks – a task he was able to fulfil with his diplomatic skills. We diverted to Dongara, where Mrs Brockway was installed in the hotel, while we headed off on our field work, picking her up a few days later on our way home.
By this time Brockway had moved to Narrogin. Here he was responsible for the Dryandra and Highbury forests where the department had established valuable plantations of brown mallet. This species is very fire-tender, and Brockway once again found himself designing and implementing a fire control system, as he had done at Mundaring many years earlier. This was so successful that today the Dryandra forest is a haven for wildlife and a conservation reserve.
In fact, if it had not been for George Brockway, Dryandra might not be there at all. Retired forester Steve Quain remembers (12):
In 1960 when I was stationed in the jarrah forest at Gleneagle, I was put in charge of the Narrogin district during the time D/F Jack Currie was on long service leave. Mr Brockway took me down there to brief me on my duties. He introduced me to all the staff and to the mallet bark stripping industry and the nursery. We camped in the bush overnight, and it became quite obvious to me that he wanted to make sure I was on-side with the need to preserve Dryandra and the surrounding reserves. He was well aware that there was a faction in the department, led by George Nunn, who wanted to get rid of the whole Narrogin/Dryandra complex, as it would become a financial burden when the bark industry ended, as was imminent. There was also serious pressure on the reserves from neighboring farmers who wanted to expand their properties. He did not have any trouble converting me to his vision of the conservation of the Narrogin district forests, and later I was very happy when I heard his views had prevailed.
Pressure to release crown land for farm expansion was almost continuous during the 1940s and 1950s. Once the techniques for farming “light land” and gravelly soils – the very areas the first settlers had avoided – farmers all over the wheatbelt started looking at bushland over their fences and putting in applications to have them alienated. George Brockway was adamant in opposition, and resolutely refused to approve any alienation of crown reserves or of bushland on vacant crown land. One of his techniques was to ensure that any request for alienation of bushland must be first assessed for the value of the flora and fauna; another was to promote the concept of bushland corridors so as to ensure continuity of reserved land as a means of wildlife conservation. These were revolutionary concepts in land management at the time.
In 1952 the Forests Department was requested by the new government of Pakistan, with funding from FAO, to help with reforestation of degraded land and famine relief in the Punjab. George Brockway was the perfect man for the job. He made a number of trips to the subcontinent, spending three years on this work, overseeing the establishment of nurseries, firewood plantations and early versions of what we today term “agroforestry”. Eric Hopkins again:
There had been visiting “experts” in this area before George, but there was absolutely nothing on the ground to show for their labours. George immediately realised the problem and refused to move until supplies of barbed wire and fencing materials were provided so that new plantings could be protected from grazing animals and the starving populace. They were utterly dependent on firewood for cooking and would even “harvest” newly planted seedlings. George invented a nursery system using earthenware pots and other local materials that were freely available in the local economy. Establishing firewood plantations were his first priority and he also set out in a manual the way these must be managed.
In the late 1950s, Brockway, now one of the Department’s most experienced and senior officers, was transferred to Head Office, where for a while he served as Deputy Conservator of Forests. But his interest was not departmental administration from an office in the city. He spent most of the 1950s on FAO projects helping with reforestation in Pakistan and India.
George Brockway retired in 1963, and lived only for a few more years. He left behind a magnificent legacy: the street trees of Kalgoorlie, the restoration of degraded lands in Pakistan and India, a network of sandalwood and conservation reserves in the Goldfields and wheatbelt, the wonderfully regenerated Goldfields woodlands and the botanical treasure trove of the millions of trees all over WA, whose seed he collected, which were raised in his nurseries and planted under his direction. He was also “the father” of trees-on-farms, a concept that today is embraced on all sides and has become an agribusiness in its own right.
End Notes
- Fordham, H (1981): George Brockway: the forgotten conservationist. The Western Australian Naturalist, Volume 17 pp 94-96
- Biographical information provided to the author by George Brockway’s nephew David
- The others being Stephen Kessell, Allan Harris and George Nunn
- The story of the forests of the Helena catchment is told in Underwood, Roger (2017): The Weir and the Woods. York Gum Publishing, Perth WA
- The development of fire control in the Mundaring district is described by Brockway in a seminal paper in October 1923, one of the first papers ever published on bushfire management in Australian forests. See: Brockway GE (1923): Fire control organisation and fire fighting operations in Mundaring District. Australian Forestry Journal Vol 6 pp 257-263
- Part of the training of professional foresters in those days (and this persisted right into the 1960s when I studied forestry) was proficiency in surveying. George Brockway would have had all the skills of a qualified
- Notes provided to the author by Eric Hopkins
- This industry is well-described in Phil Bianchi’s book Woodlines of Western Australia. A comprehensive history of the Goldfields .
- The story of Torwood is described in my book The World’s Tallest Tree
- There is a wonderful story by Fiona Kealley, wife of modern-day inland forester Ian Kealley in Women of the Forest. Fiona often accompanied Ian and acted as his volunteer Technical Assistant as well as keeping him company on long lonely field
- Notes provided to the author by Phil Shedley
- Notes provided to the author by Steve Quain.
Other references:
Brockway, GE (1929): Advice to new settlers. Departmental file 1603/53
Brockway, GE (1941): Forests of the arid Goldfields region of Western Australia. Empire Forestry Review Vol 34 (1) pp 31-41
Brockway, GE (1959): Grazing effects on shrub and tree growth of arid and semi-arid regions of WA. Unpublished report, Parks and Wildlife Library, Como.
Brockway, GE (1949): Forests of the drier areas of Western Australia. Paper presented to the Australian Forestry Conference in WA. Forests Department, Perth.
Brockway GE (1955 and 1956): Reports on forestry matters and the forests of the arid areas of the Punjab. Parks and Wildlife library, Como
Brockway GE (1959): Tree establishment in the wheatbelt. Bulletin 2616, Department of Agriculture, South Perth
Brockway GE (1965): Reserves in the Cuballing Shire. Departmental file 800/62
Brockway GE (1967): Tree establishment in the wheatbelt. Ten ABC Talks. Parks and Wildlife library Co
GEORGE BROCKWAY TREE SIGN – By Ian Kealley
In April 2019 I became involved in the George Brockway Tree project, to commemorate his role as the first professional inland forester in the Goldfields and Wheatbelt of WA. George Brockway worked for the Forests Department from 1922-63, including in Kalgoorlie from 1933 and as the superintendent of inland forests covering all to the interior of WA. He was my predecessor. He is often referred to as “the forgotten conservationist” due to his role in protecting the forests and woodlands of the inland and wheatbelt.
The house I owned in Ward St Kalgoorlie was built by the Forests Dept and George Brockway and his family were the first occupants. The nursery he started at 89 Ward St provided the Kalgoorlie street trees and it was eventually moved to Dryandra and then Narrogin.
To commemorate George Brockway a big salmon gum at the Yilliminning Rock shire reserve, 17 km east of Narrogin, will be dedicated as the George Brockway Tree and a walk trail and interpretative shelter built as part of the development of the reserve.
In April I offered a salmon gum slab I had for the sign and ended up making the sign, as designed by Wayne Schmidt, a former CALM landscape architect. Using the salmon gum slab and old dry wandoo posts from Dryandra, provided by Parks and Wildlife, I constructed the bespoke sign. The posts were very heavy and moving them around the workshop was a real challenge.
The salmon gum slab was dressed and engraved by Paul Milton at his business at Dardanup using a CNC router. Paul had worked with Goldfields timbers at Harvey during his training and did a great job. The wandoo posts were cleaned up using an Arbotech turbo plane (borrowed from Peter Clews before buying my own) to remove some white ant damage and sapwood rot. The posts were then mortised for the sign and the tops chamfered.
Once completed, the sign and posts were oiled using a 50:50 linseed oil and turps mix with several coats applied. The below ground section of the posts was treated with Moncel in ground timber protector (a replacement for creosote).
The sign was installed in September at Yilliminning Rock at the base of the 27m high, 99 cm diameter salmon gum which had a 6.4m bole. The installation was done with assistance from a team of old foresters and Parks and
Wildlife staff. Some of the project cost materials were met by the Institute of Foresters and there was aa lot of donated time and effort. There will be an official opening later in the year.
It was a great project and I very much enjoyed the organising, challenges and working with inland timbers again. It was also a great use for a salmon gum slab that I’ve had in my shed(s) for years.
Ian Kealley OAM – 30 Sept 2019
Moya Sharp
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Thank you Moya for this good article. We are indebted to people like George Brockway with foresight, will and diplomacy. And his Wife! What a team!
Agree with your comments 100% Rose.