Full name:
Percival Stanley Brookfield
Date of Birth:
August 7, 1875
Place of Birth:
England
Date of Death:
March 22, 1921
Percy "Jack" Brookfield (1875–1921), English-born, settled in Broken Hill before World War I, 20 years after jumping ship in Melbourne.
A militant trade unionist, his victories included the 1916 campaign for a 44-hour week for Broken Hill miners. Brookfield won a New South Wales parliamentary by-election as a socialist anti-conscriptionist in 1917 and pursued a strong left-wing agenda.
Shot at Riverton Railway Station while en route to parliament in Sydney in 1921, Brookfield died next day in the Adelaide Hospital and was buried in Broken Hill after the city’s largest-ever funeral. The shooting, by a mentally unstable Russian who had already wounded several people before Brookfield’s attempt to disarm him, has sometimes been mistakenly considered a political assassination.
This entry was first published in The Wakefield companion to South Australian history edited by Wilfrid Prest, Kerrie Round and Carol Fort (Adelaide: Wakefield Press, 2001). Edited lightly. Uploaded 8 August 2015.
Cite this
Bernie O'Neil, ‘Percy 'Jack' Brookfield’, SA History Hub, History Trust of South Australia, https://sahistoryhub.history.sa.gov.au/people/percy-jack-brookfield, accessed 17 April 2024.
To whom it may concern.
I have been looking for photos and history of P.J. Brookfield's Hospice in Adelaide I feel there is not enough credit given to him on this service He helped to provide there.
Hi Cathy
I am hopping you have some ore information for me on P.J. Brookfield and some photo's of his hospice. I have been researching the history of workers west of the deviding range of N.S.W. as this is the 100 year anniversary of Communism it adds to the story of workers lives back then. I am just getting over a stroke but hope to be back fully in the new year
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