BRODIE, GEORGE (1833-72) was born in Scotland. After some experience as a youth in Edinburgh he arrived in Victoria at the height of the gold diggings, was in Ballarat in 1854 and worked in a co-operative party crushing quartz at Bendigo in 1855.

In 1858 he was elected at the head of the poll as a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly for Mandurang (with Thomas Carpenter) and he was appointed a member of the board of science. When Brodie joined the Heales cabinet early in 1861 as Commissioner of Trade and Customs, he was re-elected by his constituency without opposition. A few months later, attracted by the gold discoveries in Otago, he resigned from the ministry and from Parliament and came to New Zealand as correspondent of the Otago Daily Times on the goldfields. Brodie was elected at the head of the poll as a member of the first mining board, of which he became chairman. He was also returned (with Captain Baldwin) to represent the Goldfields in Parliament (1863). He became editor and part proprietor of the Dunstan Times and was elected in 1863 to represent the district in the Provincial Council. There, both as private member and on the executive (1865-66), he took a keen interest in education. In Parliament he directed his attention mainly to mining legislation, of which he had a competent knowledge. He did not seek re-election in 1865, and withdrew in 1866 from the Provincial Council, being appointed an inspector under the debtors and creditors act 1865, and in 1867 accountant in bankruptcy. Brodie died on 3 Nov 1872.

Otago P.C. Proc.; Pyke (p); Otago Daily Times, 20 Nov 1872.

Reference: Volume 1, page 64

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