Botanical artist and algae collector for Ferdinand von Mueller. Sarah Brooks was born on board ship as her family sailed from Plymouth, England, to Australia. They arrived in Victoria in 1851, settling initially at Geelong. Brooks' father died of typhoid that year, leaving her mother, Emily, with two small children to care for. Emily Brooks opened a school, which Sarah Brooks attended from 1855. Attracted by the Western Australian government's offers of land, the family moved to that state in 1873 and lived as pioneers in the Israelite Bay and Mount Ragged region. They gave up their lands after four years when Sarah Brooks' brother, John, was recruited as the first lineman at the Israelite Bay Telegraph Station. Sarah Brooks remained there after her brother and mother moved on again in 1883, to Balbinia Station.
At this time Brooks was recruited as a plant collector by von Mueller, Government Botanist in Victoria, who had put out a request in the West Australian newspaper. She continued to work for him until his death 13 years later, making collections of flowering plants, algae and fungi around Israelite Bay, Mount Ragged and Pine Hill. Her mother and brother also made a few collections, and Sarah joined John on an inland expedition in 1886 from Israelite Bay towards the Hampton Range and Mount Ragged. After ascending the mountain, which local Aboriginals feared was the home of hostile spirits, they went on to Pine Hill and through eucalyptus woods to Balbinia and the arid country to the north. Sarah Brooks published a description of their journey in the German magazine Petermann's Geographische Mitteilungen. Von Mueller's respect for Sarah Brooks' work is evident in that he named two plants for her, Scaevola brooksiana F.Muell. and Hakea brooksiana F.Muell, both discovered by Brooks. He sent her algae collections to the Swedish phycologist J.G. Agardh, who named Rhodophyllis brooksiana J.G.Agardh in her honour.
Sources:
B. Archer and S. Maroski, 1996, "Sarah Theresa Brooks - Plant Collector for Ferdinand Mueller", Victorian Naturalist, 113(4): 188-194.
