John Brooke

John Brooke (also Broock, Brookes, Brooks) was a seaman of the British East India Company and commander of the first British crew to sight the Australian continent.

East India Company Brooke joined the East India Company and, in July or August 1621, he was appointed master of the Tryal.

Wrecks Brooke was assigned the task of making the first British East India Company voyage across the Indian Ocean while keeping no further north than the 35th parallel, to take advantage of the "Roaring Forties", then to turn sharply north making for Bantam, west Java (then Batavia). Sailing the Tryal along the 39 degree parallel, he miscalculated and overshot by some 1,000 kilometres, coming upon the west coast of the Australian continent on 5 May 1622 at 22 degrees, in the vicinity of North West Cape. The longboat was just three days behind.

Brooke's account of the event differs from that of the Tryal'''s factor Thomas Bright. Brooke reported having ordered the ship's valuables be stowed in the longboat but that the men had refused his orders and thrown them overboard, thus accounting for their absence. Bright's less improbable report was that Brooke had stowed them on the skiff and stolen them.

For his return to England, Brooke was given command of the, as he claimed, infested Moone'', leaving Batavia in February 1625. The vessel was wrecked upon their arrival off the coast of Dover, with the loss of 50,000 pounds in treasure.

Legacy The John Brookes gas field, one of Australia's largest, on the Tryall Rocks Terrace, near Barrow Island, was discovered and named for him in 1998, with the first well there named for Thomas Bright.