Richard Brooks (captain)

Often described simply as the son of an "impoverished clergyman", Richard Brooks had notable maternal ancestry, his mother having descended from the Burchinshaws of Llansannan, Wales and possibly Joseph Hall, English bishop and satirist.

Richard Brooks is said to have had little formal education before entering the British East India Company's service at an early age, rising to command his own ship.

During the first French Revolutionary War he traded to Porto, Portugal the Mediterranean and the Baltic, carrying a letter of marque, but later returned to the East India service.

Governor King asked a committee of enquiry whether Captain Brooks' private trade goods which took up space in the hospital and prison and the unnecessary stops en route to Australia contributed to the deaths.

In a letter dated 15 March 1831, Christiana wrote that her father had been “very ill from the effects of an accident occasioned by a wild cow running at him while on horseback and goring him in the calf of the leg, while returning from one of his journeys to his cattle stations in the interior.