George McCulloch master-minded the syndicate, was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on April 22, 1848; he was educated at Glasgow Primary and High Schools, then at the Andersonian University. Before arriving in Melbourne on the Loch Leven on July 30, 1871, he had some farming experience in South America. Around the year 1875 McCulloch took over the management of Mount Gipps sheep station from his cousin, William Shand Findlay. One of the part owners of the property was George McCulloch's uncle, Sir James McCulloch, then Premier of Victoria.

The station covered an area of 1,400 square miles and McCulloch, a tough, hard swearing Scot, carried out a ceaseless battle against drought, dust and dingoes. He conserved the land by subdividing it into paddocks, and was responsible for shifting the original homestead to a more favourable site, beside a creek adjacent to the road leading to Packsaddle, Milparinka, Tibooburra and southern Queensland.

When Charles Rasp informed McCulloch in September, 1883, that he had pegged out a mineral lease in the sheep run, McCulloch made the momentous decision to form a syndicate, peg out a further six leases, and commence prospecting operations. Until the Broken Hill Proprietary Company was floated, George McCulloch was the dominant figure in the enterprise, and became a member of the first board of directors of the company.

Although he lost the celebrated game of euchre and sold a one fourteenth share to Cox for £1120, McCulloch shrewdly purchased a one fourteenth share from another syndicate member for 990 pounds. McCulloch, as with Rasp and young Philip Charley, held a one seventh share in the venture at the time the Proprietary Company was formed.

McCulloch married the widow of one of his former employees in 1893, and returned to Scotland, settling at 184 Queen's Gate, London, where he lived the life of a gentleman of leisure and patron of the arts. He represented the Proprietary company in London, and also was the chairman of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company's London board. A little known gesture of appreciation shown to Broken Hill by McCulloch was the gift in 1904 to the newly formed Broken Hill Art Gallery of three oil paintings and 28 black and white reproductions. As mentioned in chapter six McCulloch donated to the hospital the cost of furnishings for the new building.

Rasp and McCulloch are the only members of the syndicate of seven whose names have been given to streets in Broken Hill.