DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Frederick Slade

DRAKE-BROCKMAN, Frederick Slade

1857-1917

surveyor and explorer

born on 9 July at Seabrook, near Northam, Western Australia.

Tall and straight. Long, ginger-coloured moustache. Blue eyes.

My name is Frederick Slade Drake-Brockman and I represent ‘Advance Australia’ because I was an explorer. I started my career as a government surveyor, in charge of deciding where to put new roads, telegraph lines and rabbit fences – that sort of thing. In 1901 I was in charge of a group of eleven men who went out to explore parts of the Kimberley. Before our trip nobody had drawn any maps of the area. We left Wyndham on 19 May 1901 and followed the Pentecost River. We then headed north-west through the Leopold Range to Walcott Inlet. Then we came back along the Drysdale River. We got back on 26 November 1901, after six months and eighteen days. Along the way we passed many Indigenous Australians. An important piece of equipment, called the chronometer, broke and I had to work out where we were by using landmarks and the stars.

lamploop.gif (6239 bytes) IDEA FOR SCENE: The year is 1901. Four men are talking together out in the Kimberley. They are four explorers called:

1. Frederick Drake-Brockman,
2. Charles Crossland (a good name for an explorer, don’t you think?) – second-in-charge of the expedition,
3. Dr F. M. House – the botanist (an expert on plants), and
4. A. Gibb Maitland – the government geologist

They have just found out that their chronometer is broken. They have to solve the problem of how to find out where they are and how to find their way home. Smithy, Ginger and Felix arrive in 1901 in the Southern Cross and Crossland, House and Maitland become frozen in time.

1901-2001 Centenary of Federation