Major General Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of ...

Edmund Alfred Drake-Brockman, (21 February 1884 – 1 June 1949) was an Australian soldier, politician, and judge. He served in both the

First First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1). First or 1st may also refer to: *World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement Arts and media Music * 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...

and

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

s. He was a Senator for

Western Australia Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...

from 1920 to 1926, representing the Nationalist Party, and later served as a judge of the

Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration The Commonwealth Court of Conciliation and Arbitration was an Australian court that operated from 1904 to 1956 with jurisdiction to hear and arbitrate interstate industrial disputes, and to make awards. It also had the judicial functions of i ...

from 1927 until his death in 1949.

Early life

Born in

Busselton, Western Australia Busselton is a city in the South West region of the state of Western Australia approximately south-west of Perth. Busselton has a long history as a popular holiday destination for Western Australians; however, the closure of the Busselto ...

, Drake-Brockman was the son of surveyor Frederick Slade Drake-Brockman and heroine

Grace Vernon Bussell Grace Vernon Drake-Brockman (née Bussell; 23 September 1860 – 7 October 1935), commonly referred to as Grace Bussell, was a woman from Western Australia. In 1876, as a 16-year-old, she was involved with Sam Isaacs in the rescue of the SS ' ...

and brother of

Deborah Vernon Hackett Deborah Vernon Buller Murphy (née Drake-Brockman, previously Hackett and Moulden; 18 June 1887 – 16 April 1965), best known as Lady Hackett or Lady Moulden, was an Australian community worker, philanthropist, and mining investor.Alexandra Hasl ...

. He was a 1902 graduate of the

Guildford Grammar School Guildford Grammar School, informally known as Guildford Grammar, Guildford or GGS, is an independent Anglican coeducational primary and secondary day and boarding school, located in Guildford, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia. Initial ...

. Interested in the military, he joined the Citizen Military Forces as a volunteer in 1903. He combined this with a career in law, becoming a barrister and solicitor in 1909, practicing in Perth.

First World War

Following the outbreak of the First World War, he volunteered for overseas service and served in the Gallipoli Campaign as a major while assigned to the 11th Battalion. He was made a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for his services at Gallipoli. Later in the war, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and commanded another Western Australian infantry battalion, the

16th 16 (sixteen) is the natural number following 15 and preceding 17. 16 is a composite number, and a square number, being 42 = 4 × 4. It is the smallest number with exactly five divisors, its proper divisors being , , and . In English speech, ...

, serving on the Western Front. In 1918, he was promoted to

brigadier general Brigadier general or Brigade general is a military rank used in many countries. It is the lowest ranking general officer in some countries. The rank is usually above a colonel, and below a major general or divisional general. When appointed ...

and commanded the 4th Brigade.

Politics

Drake-Brockman was elected to the Senate at the 1919 federal election, one of a number of former AIF commanders elected as

Nationalists Nationalism is an idea and movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the state. As a movement, nationalism tends to promote the interests of a particular nation (as in a group of people), Smith, Anthony. ''Nationalism: The ...

. He was the first native-born Western Australian to be elected to the Senate, and only the second to be elected to federal parliament (after Sir John Forrest). Drake-Brockman became a "loyal government supporter". In 1923, when parliament reconvened after the 1922 election, he was appointed as

government whip A whip is an official of a political party whose task is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. This means ensuring that members of the party vote according to the party platform, rather than according to their own individual ideology ...

. In parliament, Drake-Brockman spoke frequently on defence issues. He supported the government's ''Defence Bill 1921'' which would have applied the United Kingdom's ''

Army Act Until 1689, mutiny was regulated in England by Articles of War instituted by the monarch and effective only in a period of war. This abuse of the crown's prerogative (the crown's right to make and enforce rules for the military) caused Parliamen ...

'' to the Australian military, and warned of Japanese aggression in the Pacific in the context of "the preservation of a White Australia". On trade policy, he "argued that the protective tariff disadvantaged the primary producing Western Australians" and opposed the government's establishment of the Tariff Board. Drake-Brockman was a member of several select committees, including that which recommended that the government commission

Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) AWA Technology Services, name based on former name Amalgamated Wireless (Australasia) Ltd, is an Australian provider for technology related services. Throughout most of the 20th century AWA was Australia's largest and most prominent electronics o ...

to develop an overseas radio communication service. In 1925 he represented Australia at the League of Nations Assembly in Geneva. In 1924, Drake-Brockman was elected president of the Central Council of Australian Employers, an

employers' federation An employers' organization or employers' association is a collective organization of manufacturers, retailers, or other employers of wage labor. Employers' organizations seek to coordinate the behavior of their member companies in matters of mutua ...

, succeeding George Fairbairn. At the annual convention later in the year, he "urged the employers to strenuously resist the rising tide of socialism" and advocated a return to

piece work Piece work (or piecework) is any type of employment in which a worker is paid a fixed piece rate for each unit produced or action performed, regardless of time. Context When paying a worker, employers can use various methods and combinations of ...

rather than wages. Drake-Brockman did not recontest the 1925 federal election, in order to allow the Nationalists to put forward a joint ticket with their coalition partners the Country Party. He was the most junior of the three Nationalist senators in Western Australia up for re-election. His term expired in June 1926.

Judicial career and later life

In April 1927, Drake-Brockman was appointed to the

. Still in the Citizen Military Forces, he was called up for duty during the Second World War, and commanded the 3rd Division, a militia formation, until 1942. He died on 1 June 1949, and was survived the three children he had by his wife, Constance, whom he had married in April 1912.

References

;Citations ;Bibliography * *Mallett, Ross
Major General Edmund Drake-Brockman
General Officers of the First AIF, adfa.edu.au
Obituary
Obituaries Australia, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University {{DEFAULTSORT:Drake-Brockman, Edmund Alfred 1884 births 1949 deaths Military personnel from Western Australia 20th-century Australian politicians Australian Companions of the Distinguished Service Order Australian Companions of the Order of St Michael and St George Australian Companions of the Order of the Bath Australian generals Australian military personnel of World War I Australian Army personnel of World War II Drake-Brockman family Members of the Australian Senate for Western Australia Nationalist Party of Australia members of the Parliament of Australia People from Busselton