BACK                                                                                                           HOME                                   LEGEND OF PERCY BROOKFIELD On 25 March 1921, the mortal remains of Percival Brookfield, member of the N. S. W. Legislative Assembly, were laid to rest at the Broken Hill cemetery. On that day, thousands lined the route of the long funeral procession which began at the Trades Hall and, as the cortege passed by, men and women wept unashamedly.  Percy Brookfield was being accorded a hero's last farewell. Born at Wavertree, Lancashire, in 1874, and reared at Liverpool, Brookfield went to sea at the age of 13. After a period of seafaring, including a stay in South America, he left his ship in Melbourne and subsequently obtained employment in Victorian mining centres. He came to Broken Hill around 1914 and began work as a miner. Percival - so christened, but also known as Jack, Percival John and Percival Stewart Brookfield - was a large, heavily built, handsome man who (in keeping with his unconventional outlook) seldom wore a tie. Those who knew him during his early life in Broken Hill recall him as possessing a mild genial nature.  He was not a mob orator, nor a polished dynamic speaker, but the obvious sincerity of his violent opposition to conscription to war service made a deep impression on some people, although greeted with bitterness by others with sons and husbands on active service. In 1916 Brookfield became the centre of demonstrations and public disturbances and, with Sinclair and McLaughlin, was brought before the court and fined.  He continued to make defamatory public statements and was charged and fined 50 pounds under the War Precaution Act - with the alternative of spending one month in gaol.  He chose the latter course and, shortly after his release, was elected as Labor member for Sturt, following the unexpected resignation of John Henry Cann to accept an appointment as a member of the Railways Commission. At a further State election held six weeks later, Brookfield was returned to Parliament with an even greater majority. Following his re-election Brookfield's career as a Member of Parliament was filled with incident.  He aligned himself with a breakaway group at the official Labor Conference in 1919 and thereupon was expelled from the Australian Labor Party.  Brookfield's nomination as an ALP candidate was refused for the 1920 election; he became the nominee of a newly formed political organisation, the Industrial Labor Party, and was returned by the Broken Hill electorate of Sturt. Because of the narrow Labor majority in Parliament, his vote was keenly sought by the party which had previously expelled him. Brookfield campaigned vigorously for a Royal Commission into the trial and imprisonment in 1916, for periods of up to 15 years, of 12 members of the IWW on various charges of treason, arson and seditious conduct.  He agreed to support the Labor Party if a Royal Commission were set up.  As a result of this second inquiry, ten of the prisoners were immediately released and the remainder discharged some months later. Brookfield, as vice - president of the underground section of the Amalgamated Miners Association, had joined with Considine, Kerr, Barnett and O'Reilley in 1916 in the bitter campaign to secure a reduction in working hours.  He is also credited with having used his political 'balance of power' in 1920 to obtain an improvement in the original recommendations made by Mr Justice Edmunds.  But even his most devoted followers were puzzled at his obsession with causes which had little bearing on local needs.  Brookfield helped organise a demonstration in Sydney over an Australian, Paul Freeman, who, for political reasons was refused re-entry into Australia; police were called to disperse the crowd of 15, 000. He joined cause with the Sinn Fein movement for Irish nationalist independence. Brookfield scorned an invitation in 1920 to attend a state dinner in honour of the Prince of Wales, with the reply that it was unfair for well-fed people to gorge while others were starving for bread and, that, in any case, he had an appointment with Simonoff, the (unofficial) Russian Consul. Just before 8am on 22 March 1921, the Adelaide-bound steam train from Broken Hill pulled into the small, sleepy township of Riverton, 60 miles north of Adelaide, where the customary stop for breakfast was made.                                                      CONTINUE NEXT PAGE