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Brookes Photographic Union c1889
Aire River
Collection: State Library of Victoria |
Frederick Augustus Brookes
Frederick Augustus Brookes (often referred to as F.A. Brookes or "Professor" Brookes) was a prominent 19th-century photographer and artist active in Melbourne and regional Victoria. He is best known for his collaboration with his brother, Albert Edward Brookes, under the names Brookes Bros. and Brookes’ Photographic Union. Together, they produced some of the most significant early photographic records of the Victorian landscape.
Frederick Brookes was born in 1851 in Radford, Nottinghamshire, England. He lived in New Zealand before arriving in Victoria in the early 1880s. During the late 1880s, directories listed him as an "artist and photographer" with studios in the suburbs of Ascot Vale and Moonee Ponds (Melbourne).
Frederick Brookes was instrumental in creating early "view books" and photographic series that were sold to the public as albums. Gippsland Through The Camera (1889) was produced by the Brookes Bros. while Frederick was living in Sale. Western Victoria: Companion to "Gippsland Through The Camera" (1891) was published under the name Brookes’ Photographic Union; the brothers produced a second series covering Geelong, the Bellarine Peninsula, and the Western District.
After his time in Melbourne and Sale, he followed his brother Albert to Geelong around 1891. He later moved to New South Wales, where he passed away in Rockdale around 1922.
Gael Newton 2026 essay: Prof. F.A. Brookes and E. Stanley Brookes: a family lineage of photographers and performers
A selection of Brookes Photographic Union c.1889 photographs
Edwin Stanley Brookes - an amazing pamphlet
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